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WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 



WHERE ARE WE 

GOING? 


BY 

THE EIGHT HONOUEABLE 

DAVID LLOYD GEORGE / 

Oil., P.C., M.P. 

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER 1916-1922 


NEW 



YORK 


GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


Jfe53 



COPYRIGHT. 1923, 

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 






WHERE ARE WE GOING? II 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


©C1A760691 


NOV 2 1923 


•'j 


I 



A*r 




PREFACE 


The chapters collected in this book represent a 
running comment on the European situation during 
the past ten months. Although in the haze that 
covers the Continent it is difficult always to see 
clearly what is happening, and still more difficult to 
forecast what is likely to occur, I have not deemed 
it necessary to revise any of the estimates I made 
from time to time in these periodic reviews on the 
position. In the period covered by them peace has 
gone back perceptibly and unmistakably. Of the 
years immediately after the end of the Great War 
it may be said that up to the present year each 
showed a distinct improvement over its predecessor. 
The temper of the warring nations showed a grad¬ 
ual healing and improvement, and East and West 
there was a return to reason and calm in their atti¬ 
tude towards each other. In the Cannes discussions 
of January 1922 the atmosphere of hostility which 
poisoned the Spa discussions in 1920 had largely 
disappeared, and the applause which greeted Herr 

[v] 


PREFACE 


Rathenau’s fine speech at Genoa in April 1922 was 
cordial and general. The electric messages from 
Paris failed to provoke a thunderstorm, and one of 
the speakers, at the last meeting of the Assembly, 
drawing an illustration from the weather outside, 
said the Conference had broken up under blue skies 
and a serene firmament. 

. That was in May 1922. Those words, when used, 
met with cheering approval: if used to-day they 
would be greeted with scoffing laughter. The pres¬ 
ent year has been one of growing gloom and men¬ 
ace. The international temper is distinctly worse 
all round. A peace has been patched up with the 
Turkish Empire. No one believes it can endure 
long. The only question is, How long? There 
may be other patched-up treaties between strug¬ 
gling nations before the year is out. There is only 
one prediction concerning them which can at this 
stage be safely made—they will leave European 
peace in a more precarious plight than ever. A 
peace wrung by triumphant force out of helpless¬ 
ness is never a good peace. That is why I view 
with apprehension the character of the settlement 
which may soon be wrung out of German despair in 
the Ruhr and imposed on Greek impotence in the 
[Vi] 



PREFACE 


Adriatic. The Fiume settlement may turn out to 
be more satisfactory in spite of threatening omens. 
The Jugo-Slavs are a formidable military proposi¬ 
tion to be tackled by any Power. The War proved 
them to be about the best fighting material in Eu¬ 
rope. They are also fairly well equipped with mod¬ 
ern weapons, and if unhappily the need arose their 
deficiencies in this respect would soon be supplied 
from the workshops of Czecho-Slovakia and else¬ 
where. I am, therefore, still hopeful that Fiume 
may be remitted for settlement to diplomatists and 
not to gunmen. International right in these turbu¬ 
lent days seems to depend, not on justice, but on a 
reckoning of chances. The Slavs are ready to de¬ 
fend their rights and can do so. There is, therefore, 
some talk of conferences and even arbitration in 
their case. Germany and Greece cannot put up a 
fight. Unconditional surrender is, therefore, their 
lot. All the same, this is not only a wrong but a 
miscalculation. Unjust concessions, extracted by 
violence, are not settlements; they are only post¬ 
ponements. Unfortunately, the decisions at the 
next great hearing of the cause are just as likely to 
be provisional—and so the quarrel will go on to the 
final catastrophe unless humanity one day sees the 

[vii] 


PREFACE 


light and has the courage to follow it. But that day 
must not be too distant, otherwise it will come too 
late to save civilisation. The last conflict between 
great nations has exposed the devastating possibili¬ 
ties of modern science. Henceforth progress in the 
destructiveness of the apparatus of war has been, 
and will continue to be, so rapid that a conflict to¬ 
morrow would spread ten times the desolation 
caused by the Great War of 1914-18. There is a 
concentration of much scientific and mechanical 
skill on strengthening the machinery of devastation. 
Incredible progress—if progress be the word—has 
been made within the last three or four years in per¬ 
fecting and increasing the shattering power of this 
kind of devilry. What will it be like five, ten, 
twenty years hence! 

Whilst nations are piling up, perfecting and in¬ 
tensifying their explosives, they are also saturating 
the ground with the inflammable passions which one 
day will precipitate the explosion. Injustice, in¬ 
sult, insolence, distilled into the spirit of revenge, 
is everywhere soaking into the earth. 

I have never doubted that France could impose 
terms on Germany. It was clear that she could 
starve Germany into submission to any conditions 



PREFACE 

dictated to her. It is astonishing that the Germans 
should have held out so long. What I have steadily 
predicted in these articles is that those terms will 
not produce as much reparation as a more concilia¬ 
tory course would have brought—that to operate 
them will be a source of constant friction, and that 
the methods employed to impose and execute them 
will rouse a spirit of patriotic wrath which will in 
the end bring disaster to the victor of to-day. 

When the invasion of the Ruhr was decided upon, 
the shortage in the promised coal deliveries upon 
which default was declared was barely 10 per cent. 
A little better organisation of the wagon service on 
the French side would have made up that deficiency 
in a very short time. During the months of the occu¬ 
pation the French and Belgians have not succeeded 
in collecting one-sixth the tonnage delivered during 
the corresponding months last year. It will take 
weeks after passive resistance has collapsed to re¬ 
store railways and collieries to working order. The 
new regime will have to liquidate arrears of at least 
15,000,000 tons before it begins its regular monthly 
deliveries. What about cash payments? It is not 
too much to say that Germany is much less able to 
meet her obligations in this respect than she was 

[ix] 



PREFACE 

before the invasion. Her credit has been blown out 
of sight into infinite space. It will- take a long time 
to pull it back from its wanderings and set its feet 
once more firmly on European earth. There are 
only four ways in which the huge sum due from 
Germany can be liquidated:— 

(1) By handing over to the Allies the gold re¬ 
serves of Germany and of Germans either at home 
or on deposit abroad. The former is negligible; the 
amount of the latter is disputable. Much of it is 
essential to enable Germany to purchase abroad the 
raw material and food necessary to her existence. 
The worse German credit becomes the larger must 
this deposit be. As for the foreign securities and 
deposits which are not strictly necessary for trading, 
they cannot all be made available, for nothing will 
induce some of the depositors to part with the whole 
of these securities. The sum, therefore, derivable 
from this source would amount to but a small per¬ 
centage of the total figure payable for reparations. 

(2) Deliveries of coal, timber, potash, dyes and 
other raw material. With the exception of timber, 
these deliveries have been, on the whole, satisfactory 

w 


PREFACE 


—since the Spa Agreement. It did not require the 
pressure of armed invasion to improve these de¬ 
liveries, including the timber demands of the Allies. 

(3) A percentage levied on German exports. 
These are paid for in gold or its equivalent, and the 
levy would therefore be remitted in gold. A levy 
of 20 per cent, on German exports would have pro¬ 
duced between <£40,000,000 and £50,000,000 a year 
on the basis of last year’s exports. When German 
trade returned to normal it would yield £100,000,- 
000. This sum, added to the value of the material 
delivered, would cover interest and sinking fund on 
the £2,500,000,000 which is now the accepted maxi¬ 
mum of German capacity. 

(4) The restoration of German credit with a 
view to the immediate raising of a loan on repara¬ 
tion account. This would help the Allies over their 
urgent financial difficulties. 

These four methods of payment are the only 
known and knowable means of obtaining repara¬ 
tions. They would have been more immediately 
fruitful if so much time, money and resource had 
not been wasted over this ill-judged invasion. 

[xi] 


PREFACE 


The apologists of French action in the Ruhr con¬ 
tend that France was driven to these extremes by 
the refusal of Britain to co-operate with her in 
bringing legitimate pressure to bear on Germany to 
carry out the Treaty. Those who put forward this 
contention argue in ignorance of the proposals sub¬ 
mitted by the British Government to the Allied 
Conference in August 1922. These would have ex¬ 
ploited all the methods above set forth to the limit 
of their productiveness. These proposals were sub¬ 
stantially accepted by all the Allies except France. 
Repeated efforts have been made this year in Par¬ 
liament to induce the Government to publish this 
scheme. Both the present and the late Prime Min¬ 
ister gave favourable if not definite answers to the 
request for publication. But so far the August pro¬ 
ceedings have not made their public appearance. 
Why this reluctance to give the whole facts to the 
public? The discussions at the November and Jan¬ 
uary Conferences have been published in full. 
These meetings were only adjournments from the 

i 

August Conference. The story of the fateful Con¬ 
ference is, therefore, incomplete if August is sup¬ 
pressed. Ought not the world to know the pro¬ 
posals which France rejected in August 1922? In 
[xii] 


PREFACE 


the absence of official publication I will take the re¬ 
sponsibility now of giving a Summary. 

It was proposed:— 

(1) That Germany should be called upon to 
take such measures as the Reparations Commission 
should stipulate, in order to balance her Budget and 
restore her financial stability. 

(2) That the Reichsbank should be made inde¬ 
pendent of Government control. 

(3) That 26 per cent, of the total value of Ger¬ 
man exports should be collected in gold or foreign 
currencies and paid into a separate account in the 
Reichsbank in the name of the Sub-Committee of 
the Reparations Commission known as the Commit¬ 
tee of Guarantees. 

(4) That the produce of all German import and 
export duties other than the levy should be paid 
monthly to a special account at the Reichsbank, 
which should be under the scrutiny of the Commit¬ 
tee of Guarantees. The German Government 
should have the disposal of the sums standing to the 
credit of this account so long as the Reparations 
Commission was satisfied that it fulfilled the obli¬ 
gations imposed upon it. If at any time the Com- 



PREFACE 

mission was not satisfied that this was the case the 
Committee of Guarantees should have the right to 
take over the sums standing to the credit of this ac¬ 
count and to secure the payment to it of the produce 
of these duties thereafter. 

(5) There were stern provisions for supervision 
of German finance by the Committee of Guarantees 
and for preventing the export of German capital. 

(6) There were provisions for supervision over 
State mines and forests in the event of their being 
a failure in delivery of coal or timber as the case 
might be. 

A Moratorium up to December 1922 was to be 
given conditionally on the acceptance of the above 
terms by the German Government, and the Repa¬ 
rations Commission were then to proceed to fix the 
further annual payments. 

Had these drastic proposals been adopted and 
enforced by the Allies, what would have been the 
result? Deliveries of coal and timber would have 
been ensured up to the full quota arranged. By 
means of the levy on exports, £50,000,000 would 
have been already collected in gold and paid into 
Allied account. The mark would have been sta- 
[xiv] 


PREFACE 

bilised, and could have been made the basis of a 
considerable loan. As German trade gradually re¬ 
covered the export levy would bring in larger 
amounts. This year would certainly have produced 
a yield of between £60,000,000 and £70,000,000. 
This is what would have been effected for Repara¬ 
tions if the plan put forward by the British Govern¬ 
ment had been accepted and put into execution in 
August. By the settlement of this most troublous 
question, the great cost and the still greater irrita¬ 
tion of the Ruhr episode would have been avoided, 
trade would have continued its convalescence, and 
the peace of Europe would have been established. 

What would have happened if Germany had re¬ 
fused these terms? We should certainly have heard 
what objections or counter-proposals Germany had 
to offer. But we were resolved to have a settlement 
that would put an end to the fiscal chaos inside Ger¬ 
many, and having thus put her in a position to pay 
we were equally resolved that she should pay up to 
the limit of her capacity. We, therefore, under¬ 
took, if Germany rejected the terms finally agreed 
upon, to join France and the other Allies in any 
coercive measures deemed advisable to compel ac¬ 
ceptance. M. Poincare refused to agree. His re- 

[XV] 


PREFACE 

fusal alone rendered that Conference fruitless. 
Over a year has elapsed since then. He has pursued 
a different policy. So far it has brought him noth¬ 
ing. I am bold enough to predict that in future it 
will bring France considerably less than the Au¬ 
gust 1922 plan would have yielded. 

If he is out for reparations his policy will inevita¬ 
bly fail in comparison with that he so rashly threw 
over. Rut if he is out for trouble it has been a 
great success, and in future it will be an even 
greater triumph for his statesmanship. A perma¬ 
nent garrison in the Ruhr has possibilities of mis¬ 
chief which it does not require any special vision to 
foresee. 

Enduring peace can only rest on a foundation of 
justice. It is just that Germany should exert her¬ 
self to the limit of her strength to repair the damage 
wrought by her armies. She was the aggressor; she 
was the invader. Her aggression inflicted serious 
hurt on her neighbours. By the established pre¬ 
cepts of every civilised law in the world she ought to 
pay up. A peace which did not recognise that ob¬ 
ligation would be unjust and provoke a righteous 
resentment in the breasts of the wronged. That 
sentiment would have been inimical to the good 
[xvi] 


PREFACE 


understanding that is one of the essentials of peace. 
Moreover, it is not conducive to good behaviour 
amongst nations that they should be allowed to rav¬ 
age and destroy without paying the penalty of their 
misdeeds. That is why I do not agree with those 
who would wipe out the claim for reparations en¬ 
tirely. On the other hand, civilised jurisprudence 
has also advanced to the stage where it forbids the 
creditor to attach his debtor’s freedom and independ¬ 
ence as security for the payment of the debt. The 
law that permitted a debtor to be sold into bondage 
for an unliquidated liability has now been voted 
barbarous by the more humane usage and wont of 
the day. That is why I protest against using armed 
force to occupy and control a country whilst the 
scourge of starvation is being used to whip its work¬ 
men into toiling for payment of a foreign debt. As 
Mr. Gladstone once said: “Justice means justice to 
all.” The main difficulty of a just settlement of 
reparations comes from the growing disposition to 
take sides blindly in this dispute. One party sees 
nothing but the outrage of 1914-18, the costly vin¬ 
dication of right, and the just claim of the victims 
to compensation for their losses. The other party 
sees nothing but the harsh fury with which the vic- 

[xvii] 


PREFACE 


tors in the cause press their verdict to execution. 
Peace can only be restored by a full recognition of 
the equities as well as the humanities—of the hu¬ 
manities as well as the equities. I have sought in 
these pages to deal fairly with both. 

D. Lloyd George. 

September 13th, 1923. 


[xviii] 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

Is THE GREAT PERIL.25 

Post-war Europe Revisited—Impoverish¬ 
ment and Taxation—Race Hatreds Un¬ 
changed— How War Is Begun—Vengeance 
Is the Lord’s—The Churches and the 
League of Nations. 

II: EUROPE STILL ARMING ... .51 

Marshal Foch and the Cause of the Great 
War—Navies for Defence—Strength of 
Europe’s Armies—Europe More Militant 
Than Ever. 

Ill: THE ERUPTION IN THE MEDITERRAN¬ 
EAN .59 

Dropping Hot Cinders in the Balkans— 
Seeing War in Pictures—Force the Ar¬ 
biter of Right and Wrong—Limiting the 
Activities of the League—Bottling up 
the Adriatic. 

IV: IS THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS A SUC¬ 
CESS? .68 

Triumphs of the League—All Great 
Powers Should Be in It —America and 
the League—Treaty and the League— 
Ending the Arbitrament of the Sword. 

[xix] 




CONTENTS 


PAGE 


CHAPTER 

V: THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES AND ITS 
CRITICS.81 

Treaty Criticised But Not Read—America 
and the Treaty—Labour and the Treaty 
—Treaty and League of Nations Inter¬ 
woven. 

VI: 1922 . 95 

War Dance Still in the World—Ulti¬ 
matum Instead of Conference—Cannes 
and Genoa—Enemies at Council Table— 

Talk of an American Loan. 

VII: WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? .... 104 

Clemenceau and the Rhine—Annexation 
and Revenge—Anglo-American Guarantee 
to France—PoincarJ& and the Rhine. 

VIII: WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? . . . .116 

Versailles Treaty and the Rhine Fron¬ 
tier—Foch and the Political Frontier— 
American and British Pressure—Sham 
Republic of the Rhine. 

IX: WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? .... 130 

Bonar Law and Poincare—Productive 
Sanctions and Reparations—Moratorium 
for Germany Fails—Britain Stands Aside. 

X: REPARATIONS.136 

Reparations and the Treaty—Capacity to 
Pay—Reparations Commission Changed— 
America’s Vacant Chair—Worthless “C” 

Bonds for Britain. 

[XX] 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

XI: MR. HUGHES’S NEW HAVEN SPEECH . 
Secretary Hughes’s New Haven Speech, 
a Timid Deliverance—Impartial Tribunal 
of Experts—Offer of American Help. 

XII: THE FRENCH INVASION OF THE RUHR 
What Germany Has Paid—“In Technical 
Default”—Wrong Way to Make Germany 
Pay—Ruining German Industry—France’s 
Secret Aim. 

XIII: LOST OPPORTUNITIES .... 
French Failure in the Ruhr—Wild Oats 
of Reparation—The Ruhr and the League 
of Nations—The Bankers’ Conference. 

XIV: FRENCH SCHEMES. 

Italy and the Ruhr—Iron Ore of Lor¬ 
raine and German Coal Deposits— 
Loucheur and Hugo Stinnes—German 
Workmen in Bondage. 

XV: THE QUICKSAND. 

Loucheur and the Ruhr—Lack of Leader 
in France—Disregard of Allies—Aggres¬ 
sion and Security—Failure of Bonar Law. 

XVI: THE FIRST GERMAN OFFER . 

Does France Seek a Settlement?— De¬ 
mand for Submission in the Ruhr—Ger¬ 
man Offer Inadequate—Keeping America 
Out—Treaty Idea Not Followed. 

XVII: THE SECOND GERMAN NOTE . 

German Offer and the Loan to Germany 
—Can Berlin Assent to Invasion ?— Re¬ 
introducing America—Weakening Debtors 
Ability to Pay. 


PAGE 

147 


156 


167 


175 


183 


191 


202 


[xxi] 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XVIII: THE NAPOLEONIC DREAM ... 213 

European Mind Unhinged—What Every 
Frenchman Knows—Pickwick Follows 

Snodgrass—Germany May Collapse— Un¬ 
doing the Work of Bismarck. 

XIX: IS IT PEACE?.225 

Stresemann Man of Energy—Chaos Ahead 
for Germany—British Unemployment— 
France a Self-contained Country—Bal¬ 
four’s Note a Generous Offer. 

XX: WHAT NEXT?.234 

Pen-and-ink Jousting—Tory “Diehards” 
and France—Poincare and the Dove of 
Peace—What “Pay and Stay” Means— 
France’s Minimum and Britain’s Surrender. 

XXI: THE BRITISH DEBT TO AMERICA . . 244 

Borrowing for Allies—British Taxpayer’s 
Burden—Creditor Nation Now Debtor— 
Britain Must Pay Her Way—Her Cur¬ 
rency Not Discredited — Inter-Allied 
Debts. 

XXII: INTER-ALLIED DEBTS .... 252 

Discovery of the Middle West—Legend 
of British Wealth—1,400,000 Unemployed 
—The Balfour Note—Can Britain Afford 
To Be More Generous Than America? 

XXIII: THE BRITISH ELECTIONS ... 264 

Minority Rule and Moral Authority— 
National Liberals at the Polls—Danger 
of England’s Electoral System—Labour’s 
Prospects—Warring Liberal Factions. 

[xxii] 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XXIV: HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS ... 282 

Growth of Britain’s Electorate—Women 
Suffrage—New Voters Without a Party 
—Absentees from the Polls—Freaks of 
the Group System. 

XXV: POLITICAL REALITIES .... 291 

Post-war Legislation—The Irish Cauldron 
—Labour and Capital—Agriculture and 
Industry—Socialism Courting Fascism. 

XXVI: SHOULD WE MAKE PEACE WITH 
RUSSIA? ......... 301 

Pre-revolutionary Russia—Corruption and 
Betrayal—“Shaking Hands with Murder” 

—If Turkey, Why Not Russia?—Need for 
Russia’s Exports. 

XXVII: PALESTINE AND THE JEWS ... 312 

Stupidity of Anti-Semitism—Blighting Rule 
of the Turk—The Jew as a Cultivator— 

Race Equality in Palestine—Zionist Dec¬ 
laration. 

XXVIII: THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE . . 322 

Turkish Fezzes in the Air—Blow of Pres¬ 
tige of the West—Massacres and Misgov- 

ERNMENT-FERTILE COUNTRY A WILDERNESS 

—Had Wilson Succeeded—Lausanne a 
Milestone, not a Terminus. 

XXIX: THE SIGNING OF THE IRISH TREATY 339 
Gladstone’s Home-rule Fight—Scene in 
No. 10 Downing Street—Griffith and Col¬ 
lins— To Sign or Not to Sign—Childers, 

% 

Sullen and Disappointed—Treaty a Pil¬ 
lar of Hope for Future. 


[xxiii] 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XXX: PROHIBITION.350 

The Lesson from Russia—Britain Not 
Convinced—Experiments Difficult—Pub¬ 
lic Uneducated—Outlook Not Encourag¬ 
ing. 

XXXI: UNOFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF “OF¬ 
FICIAL” INFORMATION. 361 

Julius Cesar Began It—Self Defence and 
Secret Information—The Versailles De¬ 
cision—General Rules and Special Cases. 


[xxiv] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


x 

THE GREAT PERIL 

If a man on a bright July morning in 1914 had 
sailed abroad and had the misfortune to be wrecked 
on a desert island, returning to civilisation a week 
ago, the change which Europe presented to him 
would be sufficient to induce him to believe that his 
long solitude had unhinged his mind. To him it 
would have appeared as the stuff of which dreams 
are made. He would have remembered a German 
empire with an august head, ruling with autocratic 
sway a population striding with giant steps into 
prosperity and wealth, possessing a matchless 
army, whose tread terrified Europe; with a fleet 
that provoked articles and novels and agitations 
about the invasion of England; with vast posses¬ 
sions across the seas. In its place he would see 
Germany, instead of being a confident, powerful, 

[25] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

arrogant empire, a timid, nervous, and apologetic 
republic presided over by a respectable and intelli¬ 
gent workman, her minister issuing notes to pro¬ 
pitiate Belgium, and having them sent back like the 
stupid exercises of a backward schoolboy to be re¬ 
written in accordance with the pleasure of the task¬ 
master; the great*army reduced to a force one-half 
the size of that of Serbia; the menacing fleet at the 
bottom of the sea; the watch on the Rhine kept by 
French, British, and Belgian soldiers. He would 
see the Krupp works in French occupation; not a 
German colony left. 

Russia he would have recollected as a powerful 
autocracy rooted in a superstitious belief by the 
peasantry in the divinity of its head. He would 
find it now a revolutionary area ruled by the exiles 
of yesterday, shunned by the rest of the world be¬ 
cause of the violence of its communistic doctrines; 
tsardom, with its gilded retinue of splendour, flung 
into a hideous doom, and the sceptre of Peter the 
Great enforcing the doctrines of Karl Marx. He 
would see the Austrian empire as much a thing of 
the past as the empire of Nebuchadnezzar, a poor 
province lifted out of beggary by the charity of her 
foes: new states, which had been dead and buried 
[ 26 ] 


THE GREAT PERIL 


for centuries, risen from the dead, casting off their 
shrouds, marching in full panoply; Trieste an 
Italian port; the Dolomites an Italian bastion. 
The Turk alone quite unchanged, a few more am¬ 
putating operations performed upon him, but still 
preserving sufficient vitality to massacre Christians 
irrespective of denomination or race, and to become 
a sore trial and perplexity to the rest of the world. 

If our returned voyager travelled through Eu¬ 
rope he would find even more fundamental changes 
in the world of finance, trade and commerce. He 
would find impoverishment, dislocation; the elabo¬ 
rate and finely-spun web of commerce rent to pieces, 
and its torn threads floating in the wind. With a 
few sovereigns in his pocket, he would expect in 
return 25 francs, 20 marks, and about 26 lire. In¬ 
stead of that, with a paper sovereign he would find 
that he could buy 70 francs, nearly 100 lire, 250,000 
German marks, 300,000 Austrian kronen, and mil¬ 
lions of Russian roubles. The money-changers who 
once prospered on decimal fractions now earning a 
precarious livelihood in the flights of the multiplica¬ 
tion table. That would give him a better indica¬ 
tion perhaps of the reality of the change than even 
the fall of empires. On his journeys he would 

[27] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

travel through prosperous provinces rutted and 
overturned as by a gigantic earthquake; he would 
pass vast cemeteries where 10,000,000 young men 
fallen in the Great War were having their last 
sleep; he would see on all hands signs of mutilation 
of men who had been engaged in the great struggle. 
Taxation everywhere quintupled with nothing but 
debt to show for it; industry with its back bent 
under a burden of taxation which when he left ex¬ 
isted only in the nightmares of the dyspeptic rich. 
He would then be able to realise something of the 
tremendous upheaval that had taken place in the 
world. 

But what would surprise him more than all these 
amazing and bewildering transformations would 
be the one thing in which there was no change. He 
would naturally expect that after such terrifying 
experiences, the world would have learnt its lesson, 
turned its back finally on war, its crimes and its 
follies, and set its face resolutely toward peace. It 
is the one thing he discovers has not changed—the 
world has not learned one single syllable. Sus¬ 
picions amongst nations exist just as ever, only 
more intense; hatreds between races and peoples, 
only fiercer; combinations forming everywhere for 
[ 28 ] 


THE GREAT PERIL 

the next war; great armies drilling; conventions 
and compacts for joint action when the tocsin 
sounds; general staffs meeting to arrange whether 
they should march, where they should march, how 
they should march, and where they should strike; 
little nations only just hatched, just out of the shell, 
staggering under the burden of great armaments, 
and marching along towards unknown battlefields; 
new machinery of destruction and slaughter being 
devised and manufactured with feverish anxiety; 
every day science being brought under contribution 
to discover new methods to destroy human life—in 
fact, a deep laid and powerfully concerted plot 
against civilisation, openly organised in the light of 
the sun. And that after his experience of four or 
five years ago! Man the builder, and man the 
breaker, working side by side in the same work¬ 
shop, and apparently on the best of terms with each 
other, playing their part in the eternal round of 
creation and dissolution, with characteristic human 
energy. What a complex creature is man! It is 
little wonder that God gave him up repeatedly in 
despair. He is unteachable. 

I wonder whether it is realised that if war were 
to break out again, the calamity would be a hun- 

[29] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

dredfold greater than that of the last experience. 
Next time, cities will be laid waste. Possible, and 
I am sorry to say, probable enemy nations are more 
closely intertwined, and the engines of havoc are 
becoming more and more terrible. I have called 
attention repeatedly to the developments which 
took place during the late War, in the variety, the 
range, and the power of destructive weapons. 
Compare the aeroplane at the beginning of the 
war, and its small bomb which could easily be man¬ 
handled, with the same machine at the end. By 
the end of the war machines had been built, and but 
for the armistice would have been used, the devas¬ 
tating power of which was terrific. Since then the 
power of the machine, the weight of the explosive, 
and the incendiaiy material it drops, have grown, 
and are still growing. Science is perfecting old 
methods of destruction, and searching out new 
methods. One day, in its exploration, it may hit on 
something that may make the fabric of civilisation 
rock. 

Can anything be done to avert this approaching 
catastrophe? That is the problem of all problems 
for those who love their fellowmen. I warn you 
that it is madness to trust to the hope that mankind, 
[30] 


THE GREAT PERIL 

after such an experience, will not be so rash as to 
court another disaster of the same kind. The mem¬ 
ory of the terrors, the losses, the sufferings of the 
war, will not restrain men from precipitating the 
world into something which is infinitely worse, and 
those who think so, and, therefore, urge that it is 
not necessary to engage in a new crusade for peace, 
have not studied the perverse, the stubborn, and 
the reckless nature of man. There is the danger 
that the last war may even make some nations be¬ 
lieve in war. 

I have talked to many young soldiers who were 
fortunate enough to have passed unscathed through 
some of the worst experiences of the war, to many 
who suffered mutilation in some of these experi¬ 
ences ; they have given me one common impression 
that the memory of fear is evanescent, and that they 
cannot now re-create in their own minds the sensa¬ 
tions of terror through which they passed. If that 
is true of those who went through the furnace, what 
of the multitudes who simply looked on?—the mul¬ 
titudes of those who were too young to take part, 
and can only recall the excitement produced by the 
conflict and the glory of victory? The recollection 
of the headaches of an orgy never lasts as long as 

[31] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

that of its pleasures. It is useless to recall mem¬ 
ories of the terror and torture of the war, and ex¬ 
pect them to crusade for peace. Memory is a 
treacherous crusader. It starts with a right pur¬ 
pose fresh and hot on its path, but its zeal gets 
fainter as the days roll past, and it ends by handing 
over its banner to the foe. 

You can only redeem mankind by appealing to 
its nobler instincts. Fear is base, and you cannot 
lift mankind by using it as a lever. The churches 
alone can effectively rouse the higher impulses of 
our nature. That is where their task comes in. 

There is another reason why we cannot regard 
the danger as having passed away. You have all 
the elements which made for the Great War of 
1914 more potent than ever to-day. The atmos¬ 
phere of Europe is charged with them. 

What made the last war? Armed international 
dislikes, rivalries, and suspicions. The dislikes were 
based on age-long racial feuds stimulated by mem¬ 
ories of recent wrongs. Celt and Teuton disliking 
each other; Slav and Teuton suspicious of each 
other; the hatred of the Slav for the Teuton intensi¬ 
fied by the arrogance with which Germany humili¬ 
ated Russia at the moment of her weakness imme- 
[32] 


THE GREAT PERIL 


diately after the Japanese War, when she was pe¬ 
culiarly sensitive to insult. You will recollect the 
peremptoriness and the insolence of her gesture 
over the Bosnian annexation, and insolences are al¬ 
ways more painful than wrongs and rankle longer. 
They corrode the flesh, and burn into the soul of a 
nation, keeping its anger aflame. I wish nations al¬ 
ways remembered that. There was the hatred of 
the Celt for the Teuton deepened by the annexa¬ 
tion of Alsace-Lorraine, and by the incidents insep¬ 
arable from the invasion of a foreign soil. There 
was Germany suspecting that every railway con¬ 
structed by Russia was aimed at her heart. There 
was Franee convinced that Germany was only wait¬ 
ing her opportunity to pick a quarrel which would 
enable her to deprive France of her much-coveted 
colonies. There was England watching with vigi¬ 
lant insight and increasing anger the growth of 
Germany’s great fleet, which she was convinced was 
aimed at her shores. There were great armies in 
every continental country ready to march at a mo¬ 
ment’s notice, fully equipped, each commander 
firmly persuaded that his own legions were irresisti¬ 
ble. You had there all the conditions that made 
for war. Had it come of set purpose? I have read 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

most of the literature concerning the events that led 
up to that war, and it is full of warning as to how 
wars happen. They do not come because the ma¬ 
jority of those who- are concerned are bent upon 
bloodshed,, not even the majority who have the de¬ 
cisive voice if they exercised it in time. Had a 
plebiscite been taken in every country in Europe a 
week before war was declared as to whether they 
wished to engage in a European conflict, the pro¬ 
posal would have been turned down by a majority 
so overwhelming as to show that the proposition 
was one that no nation had the slightest idea of en¬ 
tertaining. That is not the reason why it came. 
But you have always in control of the affairs of* 
nations some men who hesitate; many who are apa¬ 
thetic, many who are merely inefficient and stupid; 
and then most men, even in a government, have 
their minds concentrated on their own immediate 
tasks. 

I will give you an illustration of how war is be¬ 
gun, once you have the predisposition to quarrel, 
without anybody wanting it and with the vast ma¬ 
jority of the people who are to be engaged in it op¬ 
posed to it. Austria issued an ultimatum to Serbia. 
There is nothing a big bully likes better than to 
[34] 



THE GREAT PERIL 


hector a little man who is near the point of his toe. 
Serbia was so near the boot that Austria was con¬ 
stantly tempted to give it a kick, and it did. It 
issued an ultimatum, which was a very insolent one. 
The Serbian reply was a practical acceptance of the 
Austrian demands. This is the note the kaiser 
wrote on it: “A brilliant performance this. . But 
with it disappears”—listen to this written by the 
Kaiser of Germany just a few days before war was 
declared—“but with it disappears every reason for 
war, and the Austrian minister ought to have re¬ 
mained quietly in Belgrade. After that I would 
never have given orders for mobilisation.” In three 
days there was war. 

Let me give another illustration. Admiral Tir- 
pitz said he sa.w- Von Jagow two days after the 
Austrian reply. Von Jagow, the German foreign 
minister, was so little interested in the Austro- 
Serbian conflict that he confessed to the German 
ambassador to Austria on July 27th, two days after 
the reply had been received, that he had not yet 
found time to read the Serbian reply to Austria. 
Here is the document on which ten million young 
men who had no responsibility for it have been 
slain, homes have been desolated, and a debt of 

[35] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

taxation, confusion and sorrow incurred which will 
not be wiped out as long as* this generation lasts. 

It is inconceivable, if one had not some knowledge 
of the carelessness and the procrastination which 
are bred in official circles by long practice. That 
was only three days before war was declared. This 
high official in the Wilhelmstrasse, who subse¬ 
quently agreed to the fateful decision to declare 
war against Russia, had not even read the critical 
document which ought to have averted the struggle. 
But there are always the vigilant few, the very few 
resolute men whose whole mind and energy and 
skill is engaged ceaselessly in driving forward the 
chariots of war. Whilst others are asleep, they are 
craftily dodging the traffic, and stealing along un¬ 
awares, slowly getting their chariots into position 
for the next push forward. Whilst others are 
asleep, they lash the fiery steeds along their destruc¬ 
tive course. In the press, on the platform, in the 
council chambers, in the chancelleries, in society of 
all kinds, high and low, they are always pressing 
along. When the precipice is reached, they dash 
through the feeble resistance of the panic-stricken 
mob of counsellors and officials, and nations are 
plunged into the abyss before they know it. 

[36] 


THE GREAT PERIL 


This is the way most wars come. 

Read the history of the war of 1870. It came 
about in the same confused, clumsy, purposeless 
way. In all these cases there is always in the back¬ 
ground the sinister figure of that force for mischief 
which used to be known by our Puritan fathers as 
the devil. Have these hatreds and suspicions 
abated? Are there no rivalries to-day? Are there 
no men whose one joy is in war? Was the devil 
numbered amongst the slain in the last war? I 
have never seen his name in any casualty list. Look 
around. His agents are more numerous, more ac¬ 
tive, more pressing and efficient than ever. Europe 
to-day is a cauldron of suspicions and hatreds. It 
is well to speak frankly. Celt and Teuton are now 
interlocked in a conflict which is none the less 
desperate because one of the parties is disarmed. 
There is a suppressed savagery which is but ill con¬ 
cealed, and there are new hatreds which, if they 
have not been brought into existence during the 
war, have at any rate come to the surface. Man¬ 
kind has learnt no lesson from the four or five years 
of war, although it has been scourged with scorpions. 
There was nothing that contributed more to the 
last catastrophe than the annexation by Germany 

[37] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

of Alsace-Lorraine. As long as that act of folly 
remained uncorrected there was no real peace pos¬ 
sible in Europe. The nations concerned were just 
abiding their opportunity, and the opportunity 
came. Now you have two Alsace-Lorraines at 
least. There is the annexation of Vilna by force; 
there is the annexation of Galicia by force, by 
violence, by the use of arms against the will of 
the population. Elsewhere you have the German 
and the Pole quarrelling over Silesia; the Russian 
and the Pole over doubtful boundaries; the Czech 
and the Magyar; the Serbian and the Bulgarian; 
the Russian and the Rumanian; the Rumanian 
and the Magyar. There is the age-long feud be¬ 
tween Greek and Turk. All have an air of biding 
opportunity, all are armed ready for slaughter. 
Europe is a seething cauldron of international 
hates, with powerful men in command of the fuel 
stores feeding the flames and stoking the fires. It 
is no use blaming the treaty of Versailles. This 
state of things has nothing to do with treaties. 
Here it is the spirit that killeth and not the let¬ 
ter. Sometimes wrongs are imaginary. Where the 
wrongs are imaginary time will heal the sense of 
hurt, but sometimes they are real, and time will 
[38] 


THE GREAT PERIL 

fester the wound, but everywhere and always the 
hatreds are real enough. Can nothing be done? If 
it can, let it be done in time. Let it be done at 
once. Yet, once more I remind you that if the 
gun is loaded—and it is loaded in every land— 
when the quarrel begins it is apt to go off, not be¬ 
cause the trigger is deliberately pulled, but because 
some clumsy fellow in his excitement stumbles 
against it. 

In a continent which is nominally Christian, the 
churches surely are not impotent. When the West 
was all Catholic, and it had the good fortune to 
have a high-minded and capable occupant of the 
throne of St. Peter, many a struggle was averted 
by his intervention. Can the churches not once 
more display their power? They can only do so by 
moving together, not merely every denomination 
in Britain, but every Christian community through¬ 
out Europe—Catholic and Protestant—Catholics 
even more than Protestants, for the countries where 
the peril is most imminent are more under the 
domination of the Catholic churches than of the 
Protestant faiths. If all the heroism of millions, 
their sacrifice and their sufferings, are to be thrown 
away, it will be the most colossal, criminal and in- 

[39] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


famous waste ever perpetrated in human history. 
Millions of men endangered their lives willingly. 
Millions lost their lives for the sake of establishing 
peace on earth on the basis of international right. 
A temple to human right was built with material 
quarried out of all that is choicest in the soul of 
man. But its timbers are being drenched with the 
kerosene of hatred, and one day a match will be 
lit by some careless or malignant hand which will 
set fire to this magnificent edifice; its splendour will 
be reduced to black embers, and the hope of man¬ 
kind will be once more laid in ashes. The task of the 
churches is to put forth the whole of their united 
strength to avert that catastrophe. 

Peace is only possible when you introduce into 
the attitude of nations towards each other principles 
which govern the demeanour of decent people in a 
community towards their neighbours. If inter¬ 
national methods were introduced into the dealings 
of neighbours with each other life would become in¬ 
tolerable—the unconcealed suspicions, distrusts and 
ill-will which rule everywhere, the eternal expect¬ 
ancy of and preparation for blows, the readiness of 
the strong to use violence, either to enforce his will 
on his weaker neighbour or to deprive him of his 
[40] 


THE GREAT PERIL 

liberty or his possessions, or even his life, to satisfy 
anger, revenge, or greed. Had this been the rule in 
private affairs, we should all have to live in caves, 
or in castles, according to our means. As a matte* 
of fact, man is only half civilised. In international 
matters he is still a savage, in his heart he recog¬ 
nises no law but that of force. The savage has his 
restraints. His instinct warns him not to pounce 
save when he thinks he can do so effectively and 
with impunity, and for some purpose which he 
thinks worth his while. Whether he hates or covets, 
he has no other restraint. I wish I could say that 
in essence nations to-day obey any other impulse. 
Man must be civilised in his international relations, 
otherwise wars will go on as long as mankind re¬ 
mains on this earth. 

I have seen a city wrenched from its people. I 
have seen a whole province appropriated against 
the protests of its people, and all within the last 
four years, since the Great War to establish inter¬ 
national right. There was no conceivable justifica¬ 
tion for either of these depredations except that 
both the city and the province were desirable, were 
at hand, were very tempting, and that the owners 
were too feeble to resist their pillagers. 


[41] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


The lesson must be taught that larceny does not 
diminish in turpitude as it increases in the scale of 
its operations. A nation that feloniously steals, 
takes, and carries away a city or province is just as 
criminal as the thief sentenced to imprisonment for 
robbery by violence on the high-road. And these na¬ 
tional felonies will assuredly bring trouble one day. 
They invariably do so, and unfortunately interna¬ 
tional trouble is never confined to the felon. Hu¬ 
man retribution, once it begins, is as ^discrimina¬ 
ting and uncontrollable as a prairie fire. The 
flames consume the wheat as well as the tares. 
Hell fire administered by the hand of man scorches 
the innocent equally with the guilty. The doom 
of Germany involved millions in its tortures who 
were outside her gates, abominated her crimes, and 
did all they could to prevent their perpetration. 
That is why it is written: “ ‘Vengeance is mine, I 
will repay,’ saith the Lord.” It is the supreme 
duty of the churches to teach nations to understand 
that the moral law is just as applicable to them in 
their corporate capacity as it is to the individuals 
who compose them; to teach them that hatred is just 
as unseemly between nations as it is between indi¬ 
viduals, and far more dangerous. Goodwill must 
[42] 


THE GREAT PERIL 


be assiduously cultivated between nations. It must 
be ingeminated in every way—in schools, in the 
press, in sermons, in classes. The men who are al¬ 
ways sowing distrust and dislike of men of other 
races and lands should be picked out, condemned, 
shown up, hunted by the scorn, the contempt and 
the wrath of their fellowmen. They are more dan¬ 
gerous than the incendiary who burns down an oc¬ 
casional hay-rick or habitation. 

Let the best side of every nation be better known. 
Each nation has made its contribution to the sum 
of human greatness. Dwell on that, and not on 
the failings and the deficiencies, the errors, and the 
crimes which are unhappily common to all nations. 
Name me the land that has no stain on its record. 
There is no end to the resourcefulness of hate. Its 
variety is infinite. I recollect, not so long ago, a 
time when you were not a patriot if you were pro- 
French ; the fact that you were pro-French stamped 
you as a Little Englander. France was supposed 
to be a busy and malignant foe of Britain all the 
world over, scheming everywhere against British 
interests. She stood for all that was unpleasant 
and repugnant to the British mind—in her thought, 
her literature, her politics, and her manners. 

[43] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


France heartily reciprocated our dislike. There 
were at least two occasions when war between the 
two countries was apprehended, was openly talked 
of, and was even likely. The atmosphere of the 
press in both capitals was charged with brimstone. 

Now it is to Germany you must not utter one 
word of toleration or even fair play. I am not 
counselling the abandonment of the just measure 
of our national rights as against either of these two 
countries, but they are both great nations. They 
are both nations that have contributed richly of the 
things that make for the elevation, for the happi¬ 
ness, for the splendour of mankind. If Germany is 
the land of Bismarck with its blood and iron, all 
Protestants will remember that she is also the land 
of Luther and the Reformation. If she fought in the 
late war for four years to establish a military dom¬ 
ination in Europe, she fought for thirty years with 
enduring valour and much suffering to establish 
the freedom of conscience in Europe. She has 
given to the world great literature, great painters, 
great philosophers, great explorers in all the conti¬ 
nents of thought. She is the land of unrivalled 
song. Even in the middle of the bloody conflict 
with Germany, every Sunday we praised God in 
[ 44 ] 


THE GREAT PERIL 

our churches to the notes of German music. Let 
us give credit for these things in our efforts to re¬ 
constitute the reign of goodwill. And if we feel 
angry with France, let us remember her dazzling 
array of great writers, her gigantic struggles for 
liberty, the penetrating imagination devoted to 
scientific research, which has brought incalculable 
blessings to humanity. Let us not judge France 
by the fussy little men that give expression to her 
petulance in the fits of temper that overtake every 
nation, but by the great men who have given noble 
expression to her immortal soul. France is the 
land of Victor Hugo, of Pascal, of Renan, and 
many another teacher who has taken humanity by 
the hand along the upward road. 

Everything depends on a consistent, determined, 
continuous inculcation of the principles and the 
ideal of goodfellowship, between nations. Good¬ 
will on earth means to think well of and dwell on 
the best side of others, and goodwill on earth and 
peace have been linked together. Without the one 
you will not have the other. Let us, therefore, cul¬ 
tivate the spirit of brotherhood amongst men. The 
church must appeal to the noblest sentiments of 
the human heart. Mankind can only he redeemed 

[ 45 ] 


✓ 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


by an appeal to those higher instincts. Not by an 
appeal to ignoble fear. War means terror, war 
means death, war means anguish. That will not 
prevent war, and never has. Man is the most fear¬ 
less of God’s creatures, and when his passions are 
roused there is no fear that will restrain him. The 
fire of his passion burns the restraints of self-preser¬ 
vation like bands of tow, so that fear will not re¬ 
strain the nations and make peace among them. 
War destroys trade, it brings unemployment. 
Look at all the losses, reckoning them up in cash. 
That will not prevent war: it never has. Selfish 
interests have a means of deluding themselves. 
Greed has a blind side. Do not trust to selfishness 
and selfish interest to ensure peace. Selfishness 
will ensure nothing which is worth keeping in the 
world. Selfishness pays good dividends, but it 
wastes capital. The nation or the individual that 
makes self-love the managing-director of the soul 
will end in bankruptcy—bankruptcy of respect, 
bankruptcy of ideals—bankruptcy of honour— 
bankruptcy of friendships. What is it that Ger¬ 
many is suffering from now? Her great tragedy is 
not her indemnity, not even her gigantic casualties, 
not even the destruction of her trade. The one 
[ 46 ] 




THE GREAT PERIL 


great tragedy of Germany is that she has lost the 
respect of mankind. It affects her trade, it affects 
her business, it makes it difficult for her to climb to 
the pitch whence she fell. The rope is gone. She 
has done things of which she herself is now ashamed. 
Her people—I can see it when I meet them—are 
ashamed. That is the tragedy. They are a gallant 
people, they are a brave people, they fought 
bravely, but they are broken-spirited. Why? They 
have lost their self-respect because they have done 
something that they know in their hearts was wrong. 
These are the things that have to be taught to na¬ 
tions. 

A public opinion must be worked up that will be 
strong enough to sustain international right. No 
law is possible without an active public opinion for 
its enforcement, least of all international law. 
Without it the League of Nations is a farce. 
You might as well have a wooden cannon; however 
splendidly mounted it may be, however impos¬ 
ing its appearance, every one knows that the mo¬ 
ment it is fired it will hurst. Unless the world is 
taught to respect its authority, it will become a butt 
of derision. It is no use keeping up pretences. 
Pretences never delude events. The League of Na- 

[ 47 ] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


tions may gather together representatives of all the 
great powers of the earth, and yet it may be a futile, 
barren, costly nothing unless it has behind it the 
spirit of the people who constitute those nations. 
The real danger of the moment is lest the League 
of Nations should become a mere make-believe, 
whilst the same old intrigues, the same old schemes, 
the same old international greed and hatred, should 
be working their will freely outside. The decision 
of the League of Nations has been, within the last 
two or three years, openly flouted by a member of 
that league, a member which owes its national in¬ 
dependence to the treaty which founded that 
league. Another nation, one of the principal au¬ 
thors of the league, refuses to refer a question in 
which is it concerned, and in which Europe is con¬ 
cerned, to the arbitrament of the league. Both 
these nations prefer to resort to force. The rest 
of the world looks on feebly with indifference, ac¬ 
cepting the rebuff to their league in each case. 
Why? Because there is no public opinion in the 
recalcitrant comitries to bring pressure to bear on 
the respective governments, and there is no public 
opinion strong enough outside to exercise the neces¬ 
sary insistence. 

[ 48 ] 


THE GREAT PERIL 


The churches alone can remedy this. There 
ought to be an international movement of all the 
churches, Catholic and Protestant, Protestant and 
Catholic. I know it is difficult to compass. The 
divisions in Christendom are too often fatal to com¬ 
mon action for the attainment of common aims. 
They ought to be overcome. They must be over¬ 
come. There was a time in the Middles Ages when 
religion exercised a direct as well as an indirect in¬ 
fluence in the domain of government and social re¬ 
lations. It helped to win for Englishmen their 
great charter. It gradually emancipated the serfs. 
It preserved the peace of Europe many a time when 
it was gravely imperilled by the quarrels of kings. 
In the days of Puritanism, and the days of the Cov¬ 
enant, the partnership between religion and politics 
won for us the two great boons of parliamentary 
liberty and liberty of conscience. When Methodism 
spurred the conscience of England, its influence was 
felt in the political movement that emancipated the 
slaves throughout the British Empire. 

That was one of the greatest feats of disinterested 
righteousness ever exhibited by a nation. The 
tasks awaiting religion to-day in the sphere of 
government are even greater—emancipation of the 

[ 49 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


worker from the tyrannies of economic greed, the 
saving of the nation from the curse of alcohol, and 
the spreading of the angels’ message heard on the 
hills of Bethlehem until the obdurate heart of man 
shall at last re-echo it: “Peace on earth and good¬ 
will amongst men.” 


[50] 


II 


EUROPE STILL ARMING 

Marshal Foch once told me that he considered the 
German army of 1914 the finest army the world 
ever saw, in numbers, organisation, training, and 
equipment. 

What set that army in motion? 

Much has been written and spoken as to the 
origin of the Great War, and as to who and what 
was responsible for so overwhelming a cataclysm. 
No one ever believed that it was the assassination 
of a royal archduke. Some said it was the working 
out of the pan-German scheme to rule the earth; 
some contended it was the German fear of the grow¬ 
ing power of Russia, the nervous apprehension of 
what looked like an encircling movement by Russia, 
France and Britain. 

The great French marshal’s dictum is the real 
explanation. Unless due weight is given to this 
outstanding fact the diplomatic muddle of July, 
1914, becomes unintelligible. 

Were it not that the German army was more 

[51] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

perfect and more potent than either the French or 
the Russian army—were it not that every German 
officer was convinced that the German military 
machine was superior to all its rivals—there would 
have been no war, whatever emperors, diplomatists, 
or statesmen said, thought, or intended. 

All nations have their ambitions, but they are 
not tempted to impose them upon their neighbours 
if the hazard is too obviously great. But a sense 
of overpowering force behind national aims is a 
constant incitement to recklessness, to greed, and 
to ambitious patriotism. 

The more one examines, in the growing calm, 
the events of July, 1914, the more one is impressed 
with the shrinking of the nominal rulers of the 
attacking empires as they approached the abyss, 
and with the relentless driving onward of the mili¬ 
tary organisation behind these terror-stricken dum¬ 
mies. 

Navies are essentially defensive weapons. No 
capital in the world can be captured by navies alone, 
and no country can be annexed or invaded by a 
fleet. But armies are grabbing machines. A tran¬ 
scendent army has always led to aggression. No 
country can resist the lure of an easy military tri- 
[52] 



EUROPE STILL ARMING 


umph paraded before its eyes for two successive 
generations. 

The inference is an obvious one. To ensure peace 
on earth nations must disarm their striking forces. 
Without disarmament, pacts, treaties, and cove¬ 
nants are of no avail. They are the paper cur¬ 
rency of diplomacy. That is the reason why all 
the friends of peace are filled with despair when 
they see nations still arming and competing in 
armies whilst trusting to mere words and signatures 
to restrain the irresistible impetus of organised 
force. 

A statistical survey of European armies to-day 
is calculated to cause alarm. Europe has not learnt 
the lesson of the war. It has rather drawn a wrong 
inference from that calamity. There are more men 
under arms in Europe to-day than there were in 
1913-14, with none of the justification or excuse 
which could be pleaded in those days. 

In pre-war times the statesmen of each country 
could make a parliamentary case for their military 
budgets by calling attention to the menace of pro¬ 
digious armies across their frontiers. Germany and 
Austria built up great armaments because their 
frontiers were open to the attack of two great mili- 

[53] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


tary powers who had engaged to pool their re¬ 
sources in the event of war. France and Russia 
raised huge armies because Germany possessed the 
most redoubtable army in the world, and could rely 
in the case of war upon the assistance of the not in¬ 
considerable forces of the Austrian empire. And 
both Austria and France had always the uncertain 
factor of Italy, with her army of 3,000,000, to 
reckon with. 

But since the war these mutual excuses no longer 
exist. The two great military empires of Central 
Europe have disappeared. Germany, which before 
the war had a peace establishment of 800,000 men 
and reserves running into millions, has to-day a 
total army of 100,000 men—about one-third the 
size of the Polish army. The formidable German 
equipment which for four years pounded the cities 
and villages of northern France to dust is either 
destroyed or scattered for display amongst the 
towns and villages of the victors. The Austrian 
army, which had in 1913-14 a peace establishment 
of 420,000 men and a reserve of two or three mil¬ 
lions of trained men, has to-day been reduced to a 
tiny force of 30,000 men. 

In spite of these facts France has still an army 
[54] 



EUROPE STILL ARMING 

of 736,000 men now under arms, with a trained 
reserve of two or three millions more. She is 
strengthening and developing her air force as if 
she feared—or contemplated—an immediate inva¬ 
sion. In 1914 France had an air force of 400 aero¬ 
planes ; to-day she has L152. 1 But numbers signify 
little. The size, the power, and the purpose of the 
machines signify much. Amongst the 1,152 air 
machines of to-day will be found bombers of a de¬ 
structiveness such as was not dreamt of in 1914. 

Should human folly drift once more into war 
these preparations are full of evil omen as to the 
character of that conflict. A single bomb dropped 
from one of the new bombers contains more ex¬ 
plosive material than one hundred of those carried 
by the old type. And the size of the machine and 
of its bombs is growing year by year. Where is it 
to stop? And what is it all for? Where is the 
enemy? Where is the menace which demands such 
gigantic military developments? Not one of the 
neighbours of France has to-day a force which 
reaches one-fourth the figures of her formidable 
army. Germany no longer affords a decent pre¬ 
text. The population of Germany is equal to the 

i 1,152 refers to when this chapter was written, i. e., January 6th, 
1923. The figure has increased since then. 

[55] 




WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


aggregate population of Poland, Rumania, Jugo¬ 
slavia, and Czecho-Slovakia, but her army barely 
numbers one-seventh of the aggregate peace estab¬ 
lishment of these four countries. Rumania alone, 
with a population of 15,000,000, has an army twice 
the size of that allowed by the Treaty of Versailles 
to Germany with her population of 60,000,000. 
These countries have in addition to their standing 
armies reserve forces of millions of trained men, 
whilst the young men of Germany are no longer 
permitted to train in the use of arms. Her mili¬ 
tary equipment is destroyed, and her arsenals and 
workshops are closely inspected by Allied officers 
lest a fresh equipment should be clandestinely pro¬ 
duced. An army of 700,000 is, therefore, not neces¬ 
sary in order to keep Germany within bounds. 

The only other powerful army in Europe is the 
Russian army. It is difficult to gather any reliable 
facts about Russia. The mists that arise from that 
unhealthy political and economic swamp obscure 
and distort all vision. The statistics concerning 
her army vary according to the point of view of the 
person who cites them. The latest figure given by 
the Russians themselves is 800,000. On paper that 
indicates as formidable a force as that possessed by 
[56] 


EUROPE STILL ARMING 


the French. But the events of the past few years 
show clearly that the Russian army is powerful only 
for defence, and that it is valueless for purposes of 
invasion. It has neither the transport that gives 
mobility nor the artillery that makes an army re¬ 
doubtable in attack. The Polish invasion of 1923 
was a comedy, and as soon as the Poles offered the 
slightest resistance the Bolsheviks ran back to their 
fastnesses without striking a Parthian blow at their 
pursuers. The state of Russian arsenals and fac¬ 
tories under Bolshevism is such that any attempt 
to re-equip these armies must fail. The Russian 
army, therefore, affords no justification for keeping 
up armaments in Europe on the present inflated 
scale. The fact is that Europe is thoroughly fright¬ 
ened by its recent experience, and, like all fright¬ 
ened things, does not readily listen to reason, and 
is apt to resort to expedients which aggravate the 
evils which have terrified it. 

Militarism has reduced it to its present plight, 
and to save itself from a similar disaster in future 
it has become more militarist than ever. Every 
little state bristles with guns to scare off invaders. 
Meanwhile no country in Europe pays its way, 
except Britain, with her reduced army and navy. 

[57] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

But by means of loans and inflated currencies they 
all, even the smallest of them, contrive to maintain 
larger armies than Frederick the Great or the 
Grand Monarque ever commanded in their most 
triumphant years. And the cost of armaments to¬ 
day has grown vastly out of proportion to the num¬ 
bers of the units that compose them. France—in 
many ways the richest country in Europe—displays 
a gaping and a growing rent in her national finance 
which has to be patched up by paper. The deficit 
grows in spite of the fact that a large part of her 
army is quartered on Germany to the detriment of 
reparations, and that the German contribution con¬ 
ceals much of the cost of that large army. 

A good deal of the borrowing is attributable to 
the cost of repairing her devastated area, but the 
burden of maintaining so huge an army is respon¬ 
sible for a considerable share of the deficiency. The 
economic recovery of Europe is seriously retarded 
by the cost of the new militarism. The old conti¬ 
nent is throwing to the dogs of war with both hands 
the bread that should feed her children. One day 
those dogs will, in their arrogant savagery, turn 
upon the children and rend them. 

Algeciras, December 26th, 1922. 

[58] 




Ill 


THE ERUPTION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 

The shores of the Mediterranean have from time 
immemorial been the scene of eruptions and earth¬ 
quakes. They generally break out without warn¬ 
ing. Sometimes they are devastating in their ef¬ 
fects, destroying life and property over wide areas 
and on a vast scale. Sometimes they provide a bril¬ 
liant spectacular display, terrifying in appearance, 
but not causing much destruction. To which of 
these two categories does the last eruption of Mus¬ 
solini belong? To drop hot cinders in the Balkans 
is a dangerous experiment. The soil is everywhere 
soaked with naphtha and it floats about in un¬ 
charted pools and runlets which easily catch fire. A 
cinder flung from Vienna started a conflagration 
which spread over continents. That was only nine 
years ago. The ground is still hot—the smoke 
blinds and stifles. You cannot see clearly or breathe 
freely. Now and again there is a suspicious ruddi¬ 
ness in the banks of smoke which proves that the 

[59] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


fire is not yet out. And yet there are statesmen 
flinging burning faggots about with reckless swag¬ 
ger. 

The temper of Europe may be gauged from the 
reception accorded to these heedless pyrotechnics 
on the part of national leaders by their own coun¬ 
trymen. Every time it occurs, whether in France, 
Italy or Turkey, and whether it be Poincare, Mus¬ 
solini, or Mustapha Kemal who directs the show, 
applause greets the exhibition. I remember the first 
days of the Great War. There was not a belliger¬ 
ent capital where great and enthusiastic crowds did 
not parade the streets to cheer for war. In those 
days men did not know what war meant. Their 
conception of it was formed from the pictures of 
heroic—and always victorious—feats, hung in na¬ 
tional galleries and reproduced in the form of the 
cheap chromos, engravings, and prints, which adorn 
the walls in every cottage throughout most lands. 
The triumphant warriors on horseback with the 
gleaming eye and the flourishing sabre are their 
own countrymen; the poor vanquished under the 
crashing hoofs are the foe. Hurrah for more pic¬ 
tures! The Crown Prince denies that he ever used 
the phrase “This jolly war.” His denial ought to 
[ 60 ] 





ERUPTION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 

be accepted in the absence of better proof than is 
yet forthcoming as to the statement ever having 
been made. But the phrase represented the tem¬ 
per of millions in those fateful days. It used to be 
said that in wars one lot cheered and the other 
fought. But the cheering mobs who filled the 
streets in August were filling the trenches in Sep¬ 
tember, and multitudes were filling graves ere the 
year was out. But when they cheered they had no 
realisation of the actualities of war. They idealised 
it. They only saw it in pictures. 

But the cheerers of to-day know what war means. 
France lost well over a million lives in the last fight. 
Italy lost 600,000, and there are men in every work¬ 
shop in both countries who know something of the 
miseries as well as the horrors of war and can tell 
those who do not. What, then, accounts for the 
readiness, at the slightest provocation, to rush into 
all the same wretchedness over again? The infinite 
capacity of mankind for deluding itself. Last time, 
it is true, it was a ghastly affair. This time it will 
be an easy victory. Then you had to fight a per¬ 
fectly armed Germany, or Austria; now it is a very 
small affair indeed—in one case a disarmed Ger¬ 
many which cannot fight, or, in the other case, a 

[61] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

miserable little country like Greece with no Army 
or Navy to talk of. So hurrah for the guns! A 
bloodless victory, except, of course, to the van¬ 
quished. More pictures for the walls to show our 
children what terrible people we are when pro¬ 
voked ! 

This episode may end peaceably, but it was a risk 
to take, and quite an unnecessary risk under the cir¬ 
cumstances of the case. Italy was indignant, and 
naturally indignant, at the murder of her emissaries 
in cold blood on Greek territory and, although it 
took place in a well-known murder area—on the 
Albanian border where comitadjis and other forms 
of banditti reign—still, Greece was responsible for 
giving adequate protection to all the Boundary 
Commissioners who were operating within her fron¬ 
tiers. Italy is, therefore, entitled to demand stern 
reparation for this outrage. This Greece promptly 
concedes. Not merely has Greece shown her readi¬ 
ness to pay a full indemnity, but she has offered to 
salute the Italian flag by way of making amends for 
the offence involved to the Italian nation in this fail¬ 
ure to protect Italian officers transacting legitimate 
business on Greek soil. Mussolini’s answer to the 
Greek acknowledgment of liability is to bombard a 
[ 62 ] 



ERUPTION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 


defenceless town, kill a few unarmed citizens, and 
enter into occupation of a Greek island. Does any 
one imagine, if the incident had occurred on French 
soil, and the French Government had displayed the 
same willingness to express regret and offer repa¬ 
ration, that, without further parley, he would have 
bombarded Ajaccio? Or, had it been Britain, 
would he have shelled Cowes and occupied the Isle 
of Wight? But Greece has no Navy. That, I sup¬ 
pose, alters the merits of the case! Force is still the 
supreme arbiter of right and wrong in international 
affairs in Europe. It is worth noting how a new 
code of international law is coming into existence 
since the War. The French armies invade a neigh¬ 
bour’s territory, occupy it, establish martial law, 
seize and run the railways, regulate its Press, de¬ 
port tens of thousands of its inhabitants, imprison 
or shoot down all who resist, and then proclaim that 
this is not an act of war. It is only a peaceful occu¬ 
pation to enforce rights under a peace treaty. 
Signor Mussolini shells a town belonging to a coun¬ 
try with whom he is at peace, and forcibly occupies 
part of its territory, and then solemnly declares that 
it is not an act of war, but just a reasonable measure 
of diplomatic precaution. Once force decides the 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

issue it also settles the rules. There was a time 
when English and Spaniards fought each other in 
the West Indies whilst their Governments at home 
were ostensibly at peace. And French and English 
fought in India without any diplomatic rupture be¬ 
tween Versailles and St. James’s. But in those 
days these lands were very remote and the control 
of the centre over events at these distances was in¬ 
termittent and occasionally feeble. And sometimes 
it suited Governments to ignore what was taking 
place on the fringe of Empire. But even in those 
days an attack on the homeland meant war, and it 
would mean war to-day were the attacked countries 
not powerless. I have heard it said that there is one 
law for the rich and another for the poor. There is 
no doubt one international law for the strong and 
another for the weak. 

What about the League of Nations? This is pre¬ 
eminently a case for action under the Covenant. 
Italy and Greece are both parties. How can they, 
consistently with the terms of the Treaty they so 
recently signed, refuse to leave this dispute to be 
dealt with by the League ? Italy had a special part 
in drafting the Treaty and in imposing it upon 
Germany and Austria. She cannot now in decency 
[ 64 ] 


ERUPTION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 

repudiate its clauses. It is suggested in some quar¬ 
ters that, the dignity of Italy being involved in the 
dispute, she cannot possibly consent to leave it in 
the hands of the League. That surely is a fatal 
limitation on the activities of the League of Na¬ 
tions. Every dispute involving right implicates the 
national honour and as every nation is the judge of 
its own honour, ultimately all differences would be 
ruled out of the Covenant which it did not suit one 
country or the other to refer. The League is not 
allowed to touch Reparations. If this quarrel also 
is excluded from the consideration of the League, 
it is no exaggeration to say that this valuable part 
of the Treaty of Versailles becomes a dead letter. 
It is one of the gross ironies of the European situa¬ 
tion that the Treaty of Versailles is being gradually 
torn to pieces by the countries which are not only 
the authors but have most to gain by its provisions. 
France has already repudiated the first and most 
important part of the Treaty by declaring that it 
will refer no question arising between herself and 
her neighbours under the Treaty itself to the 
League of Nations. She has further invaded and 
occupied her neighbour’s territory in defiance of the 
provisions of the Treaty. If Italy also declines to 

[65] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

respect the first part of that Treaty, then nothing 
is left of it except what it suits nations to enforce 
or obey. And if the framers do not owe allegiance to 
the Treaty they drafted, why should those who only 
accepted it under duress bow to its behests? The 
victors are busily engaged in discrediting their own 
charter. It would have been a more honourable 
course for the nations to pursue if they had followed 
the example of America by refusing to ratify the 
whole Treaty. To sign a contract and then to pick 
and choose for execution the parts of it that suit 
you is unworthy of the honour of great nations 
which profess to lead the world towards a higher 
civilisation. 

There are ugly rumours of possible complications 
arising out of this unfortunate incident. It does 
not need a vivid imagination to foretell one or two 
possible results of a disastrous character. In this 
country they would be deplored, not only for their 
effect on European peace, but for the damage they 
must inevitably inflict on the best interests of Italy. 
She has had enough of victory. What she needs 
now—what we all need—is peace. There is no 
country which has more genuine goodwill for Italy’s 
prosperity and greatness than Great Britain. It is 
[ 66 ] 




ERUPTION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 

an old and tried friendship. The two nations have 
many common interests: they have no rivalries. 
Hence, the deep anxiety of Britain that Italy 
should not commit a mistake which will mortgage 
her future even if it does not imperil her present. 

There are no doubt strategic advantages for Italy 
in holding Corfu. It enables them to “bottle up” 
the Adriatic. But it is Greek and it menaces Sla¬ 
vonia, and this introduction of foreign elements into 
the body of a State for strategic reasons always pro¬ 
vokes inflammatory symptoms injurious to the gen¬ 
eral health of a community. They tend to become 
malignant and sooner or later they bring disaster. 
Bosnia ultimately proved to be the death of the 
Austrian Empire. When the Bosnian cancer be¬ 
came active the evil of Italia Irredenta broke out 
once more, and between them they laid the Empire 
of the Hapsburgs in the dust. Italy has played a 
great part in the work of civilisation, and so has 
Greece. They have still greater tasks awaiting 
them—one on a great and the other necessarily on 
a smaller scale. It would he a misfortune to hu¬ 
manity if they spent their fine enthusiasm on hating 
and thwarting each other. 

London> September 3rd, 1923. 


[67] 


IV 


IS THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS A SUCCESS? 

Is the League of Nations a success? It is impos¬ 
sible to answer the question candidly without giv¬ 
ing offence to rival partisans. If you indicate suc¬ 
cesses already placed to the acount of the League, 
opponents deny or minimise these triumphs, and 
suggest that you are blinded by attachment to a 
chimera. If you point to shortcomings, the ex¬ 
treme zealots of the League get angry and hint 
that you are a secret enemy. 

I mean nevertheless to attempt an answer, for 
much depends on a fearless examination of progress 
made or missed. 

My first answer would be that it is scarcely fair 
to pose this question just yet. The League was 
founded only three years ago—much too short a 
period to afford a test of the working of a gigantic, 
complex, but very delicate and sensitive human 
machine. There has been hardlv time enough even 

* o 

to catalogue and chart the myriads of nerves that 

[ 68 ] 


IS LEAGUE OF NATIONS A SUCCESS? 


thread its system. You cannot move a finger at 
the councils of Geneva without touching some hid¬ 
den nerve and setting it in a condition of quivering 
protest. The League has, however, been long 
enough in existence to reveal its strength and its 
weaknesses, its power, its potentialities and its 
perils. 

It has already achieved triumphs of which its 
founders may well be proud. The restoration of 
Austria to life when it seemed to have been hope¬ 
lessly submerged in the deluge of economic, finan¬ 
cial and political disaster which had overwhelmed 
it, is a notable feat of artificial respiration. The 
successful effort organised by the League to stamp 
out typhus in Eastern Europe and prevent its 
spread to the West is also a success worthy of 
record. But for this intelligently conducted cam¬ 
paign that terrible disease would have ravaged 
Russia and Central Europe and laid low millions 
out of populations so enfeebled by hunger and pri¬ 
vation as to become easy victims to its devastating 
assaults. 

The Labour branch of the League has also been 
specially active and energetic, and its persistent 
endeavours to raise and co-ordinate the standards 

[ 69 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


of toil in all countries are producing marked and 
important results. In addition great credit is due 
to the League for the splendid work it has accom¬ 
plished in alleviating the distress which prevailed 
amongst the famine-stricken areas of Eastern Eu¬ 
rope and amongst the refugees who fled from the 
horrors of victorious Bolshevism in Russia, and 
the still greater horrors of Turkish savagery in 
Asia Minor. 

But these humanitarian tasks, praiseworthy 
though they be, were not the primary objects of the 
foundation of the League. Its main purpose was 
the averting of future wars by the setting up of 
some tribunal to which nations would be bound by 
their own covenant and the pressure of other na¬ 
tions to resort in order to settle their differences. 
Its failure or success as an experiment will be 
judged by this test alone. How does it stand in this 
respect? 

It succeeded in effecting a settlement of a dan¬ 
gerous dispute between Sweden and Finland over 
the possession of the Aaland Islands. That success 
was on the line of its main purpose. Here the 
methods of the League gave confidence in its com¬ 
plete impartiality. 

[ 70 ] 


IS LEAGUE OF NATIONS A SUCCESS? 


So much can, unfortunately, not be said of an¬ 
other question where it was called in and gave its 
decision. Its Silesian award has been acted upon 
but hardly accepted by both parties as a fair settle¬ 
ment. That is due to the manner adopted in reach¬ 
ing judgment. Instead of following the Aaland 
precedent in the choice of a tribunal, it pursued a 
course which engendered suspicion of its motives. 
It created a regrettable impression of anxiety to 
retain a certain measure of control over the decision. 
There was a suspicion of intrigue in the choice of the 
tribunal and the conduct of the proceedings. In 
the Aaland case no great power was particularly 
interested in influencing the conclusions arrived at 
either way. But here two powers of great authority 
in the League—France and Poland—were passion¬ 
ately engaged in securing a result adverse to Ger¬ 
many. The other party to the dispute had no 
friends, and was moreover not a member of the 
League. 

Britain stood for fair play, but she was not a 
protagonist of the claims of Germany. Poland had 
a powerful advocate on the League—a country with 
a vital interest in securing a pro-Polish decision. 
In these circumstances the League ought to have 

[ 71 ] 




WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

exercised the most scrupulous care to avoid any 
shadow of doubt as to its freedom from all bias. 
Had it chosen distinguished jurists outside its own 
body to undertake at least a preliminary investiga¬ 
tion as it did in the Aaland case, all would have 
been well. It preferred, however, to retain the mat¬ 
ter in its own hands. Hence the doubts and mis¬ 
givings with which the judgment of the League 
has been received not only by the whole of Ger¬ 
many, but by many outside Germany. 

This decision, and the way Poland has flouted 
the League over Vilna served to confirm the idea 
which prevails in Russia and Germany that Franee 
and Poland dominate the League. The Silesian 
award may be just, but the fact remains that it 
will take a long series of decisions beyond cavil to 
restore or rather to establish German and Russian 
confidence in the League. 

It is unfortunate that countries which cover more 
than half Europe should feel thus about a body 
whose success depends entirely on the confidence 
reposed in its impartiality by all the nations which 
may be called upon to carry out its decrees, even 
though these may be adverse to their views or sup¬ 
posed interests. The Vilna fiasco, the Armenian 
[ 72 ] 


IS LEAGUE OF NATIONS A SUCCESS? 

failure, the suspicions that surround the Silesian 
award, the timidity which prevents the tackling of 
reparations, which is the one question disturbing 
the peace of Europe to-day, the futile conversations 
and committees on disarmament which everyone 
knows, will not succeed in scrapping one flight of 
aeroplanes or one company of infantry. All these 
disappointments arise from one predominating 
cause. What is it ? 

Undoubtedly the great weakness of the League 
comes from the fact that it only represents one 
half the great powers of the world. Until the oth¬ 
ers join you might as well call the Holy Alliance 
a League of Nations. 

The ostensible purpose of that combination was 
also to prevent a recurrence of the wars that had 
for years scorched Europe, and to establish Euro¬ 
pean peace on the firm basis of a joint guarantee of 
delimited frontiers. But certain powers with selfish 
ambitions dictated its policy. They terrorised Eu¬ 
rope into submission and called that peace. 

No historical parallel is quite complete, but there 
is enough material in the occurrences of to-day to 
justify the reference. The League to be a reality 
must represent the whole civilised world. That is 

[ 73 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

necessary to give it balance as well as authority. 
That was the original conception. To ask why that 
failed is to provoke a bitter and a barren contro¬ 
versy. 

I do not propose to express any opinion as to 
the merits of the manoeuvres which led to the defeat 
of the treaty in America. Whether the Senate 
should have honoured the signature of an American 
President given in the name of his country at an 
international conference, or whether the commit¬ 
ment was too fundamentally at variance with 
American ideas to justify sanction—whether the 
amendments demanded as the condition of approval 
would have crippled the League and ought to have 
been rejected, or whether they were harmless and 
ought to have been accepted—these are issues which 
it would serve no helpful purpose for me to discuss. 

But as to the effect of the American refusal to 
adhere to the League, there can be no doubt. It 
robbed that body of all chance of dominating suc¬ 
cess in the immediate future. It is true that three 
great powers remained in the League, but Russia 
was excluded, Germany was not included, and when 
America decided not to go in, of the great powers, 
Britain, France and Italy alone remained. 

[741 




IS LEAGUE OF NATIONS A SUCCESS? 


The effect has been paralysing. Where these 
three powers disagree on important issues upon 
which action is required, nothing is done. The 
smaller powers cannot, on questions where one or 
more of the great powers have deep and acute 
feeling, impose their will; and no two great powers 
will take the responsibility of overruling the third. 

Hence questions like reparations which consti¬ 
tute a standing menace to European peace are not 
dealt with by the League. Had America been in, 
even with an amended and expurgated constitu¬ 
tion, the situation would have been transformed. 
America and Britain, acting in concert with an 
openly sympathetic Italy and a secretly assenting 
Belgium, would have brought such pressure to bear 
on France as to make it inevitable that the League 
should act. 

The success of the League depends upon the 
readiness of nations great and small to discuss all 
their differences at the council table. But no great 
power has so far permitted any international ques¬ 
tion in which it has a direct and vital interest to be 
submitted to the League for decision. 

It has been allowed to adjudicate upon the des¬ 
tiny of the Aaland Islands, over the fate of which 

[ 75 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


Sweden and Finland had a controversy. It has 
taken cognisance of disputes between Poland and 
Lithuania about Vilna, although even here its de¬ 
cision has been ignored by the parties. But the 
acute and threatening quarrel which has broken 
out between France and Germany over the question 
of reparations the former resolutely declines to sub¬ 
mit to consideration by the League. 

The Treaty of Versailles is so wide in its applica¬ 
tion and so comprehensive and far-reaching in its 
character that it touches international interests al¬ 
most at every point. So that the French refusal 
to agree to a reference of any problems in which 
they are directly concerned which may arise out of 
this treaty has had the effect of hobbling the 
League. As long as that attitude is maintained, the 
League is impotent to discharge its main function 
of restoring and keeping peace. 

The dispute over reparations clouds the sky to¬ 
day, and until it is finally settled it will cause grave 
atmospheric disturbances for a whole generation. 
It is not an impossibility that it may end in the 
most destructive conflict that ever broke over the 
earth. It is churning up deadly passions. If ever 
there was an occasion which called for the interven- 
[ 76 ] 


IS LEAGUE OF NATIONS A SUCCESS? 

tion of an organisation set up for the express pur¬ 
pose of finding peaceable solutions for trouble- 
charged international feuds, surely this is pre-emi¬ 
nently such a case. Not only do the French gov¬ 
ernment decline to entertain the idea of putting the 
covenant which constitutes the first and foremost 
part of the Treaty of Versailles into operation: they 
have gone so far as to intimate that they will treat 
any proposal of the kind as an unfriendly act. The 
constitution of the League stipulates that it will be 
the friendly duty of any power to move that any 
international dispute which threatens peace shall 
be referred to the League. Nevertheless, one lead¬ 
ing signatory rules out of the covenant all the ques¬ 
tions which vitally affect its own interests. This 
is the power which has invaded the territory of an¬ 
other because the latter has failed to carry out one 
of the provisions of the same treaty! 

This emphatic repudiation of a solemn contract 
by one of its promoters has been acquiesced in by 
all the other signatories. Repudiation and acqui¬ 
escence complete the electrocuting circuit. This 
limitation of the activities of the League is the 
gravest check which it has yet sustained in its 
career. I do not believe it would have occurred had 

[ 77 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

America, with or without Article 10, been an active 
member of this body. Its great authority, added to 
that of Britain and Italy, w r ould have made the 
pressure irresistible, and its presence on the council 
would have helped materially to give such confi¬ 
dence in the stability and impartiality of the League 
that Germany would have accepted the conclusions 
arrived at without demur and acted upon them with¬ 
out chicane. A rational settlement of the repara¬ 
tions problem by the League would have established 
its authority throughout the world. Germany, 
Russia and Turkey, who now treat its deliberations 
with distrust and dislike tinctured with contempt, 
would be forced to respect its power, and w r ould 
soon be pleading for incorporation in its councils. 
The covenant would thus become a charter—re¬ 
spected, feared, honoured and obeyed by all. There 
would still be injustice, but redress would be sought 
and fought for in the halls of the League. There 
would still be oppression, but freedom would be 
wrung from the clauses of the covenant. Argu¬ 
ment, debate and intercession would be the recog¬ 
nised substitutes for shot, shell and sword. Wars 
would cease unto the ends of the earth, and the 
reign of law would be supreme. 

[ 78 ] 


IS LEAGUE OF NATIONS A SUCCESS? 

Wherein lies the real power of the League, or to 
be more accurate, its possibility of power? It 
brings together leading citizens of most of the 
civilised states of the world to discuss all questions 
affecting or likely to affect peace and concord 
amongst nations. The men assembled at Geneva 
do not come there of their own initiative, nor do 
they merely represent propagandist societies en¬ 
gaged in preaching the gospel of peace. They are 
the chosen emissaries of their respective govern¬ 
ments. They are the authorised spokesmen of these 
governments. When in doubt they refer to their 
governments and receive their instructions, and the 
proceedings are reported direct to the governments. 
They meet often and regularly, and they debate 
their problems with complete candour as well as 
courtesy. 

It is in itself a good thing to accustom nations 
to discuss their difficulties face to face in a public 
assembly where reasons have to be sought and given 
for their attitude which will persuade and satisfy 
neutral minds of its justice and fairness. It is a 
practice to be cultivated. It is the practice that 
ended in eliminating the arbitrament of the sword 
in the internal affairs of nations. It is only thus 

[ 79 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


that international disputes will gradually drift into 
the debating chamber instead of on to the battle¬ 
field for settlement. Wars are precipitated by mo¬ 
tives which the statesmen responsible for them dare 
not publicly avow. A public discussion would drag 
these emotives in their nudity into the open where 
they would die of exposure to the withering con¬ 
tempt of humanity. The League by developing 
the habit amongst nations of debating their dif¬ 
ferences in the presence of the world, and of court¬ 
ing the judgment of the world upon the merits of 
their case, is gradually edging out war as a settler 
of quarrels. That is the greatest service it can ren¬ 
der mankind. Will it be allowed to render that 
service? If not, then it will perish like many an¬ 
other laudable experiment attempted by mankind 
in the effort to save itself. 

But if it dies, the hope of establishing peace on 
earth will be buried in the same tomb. 

London, April 2nd, 1923. 


[ 80 ] 


4 


V 

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES AND ITS CRITICS 

I have had recently special opportunities for ap¬ 
preciating the extent to which the Treaty of Ver¬ 
sailles has not been read by those who have formed 
very definite opinions concerning its qualities. 
There is no justification for a failure to peruse this 
great international instrument. It is the most im¬ 
portant document of modern times. It has re¬ 
shaped for better or for worse much of the geog¬ 
raphy of Europe. It has resurrected dead and 
buried nationalities. It constitutes the deed of 
manumission of tens of millions of Europeans who, 
up to the year of victory, 1918, were the bondsmen 
of other races. It affects profoundly the economics, 
the finance, the industrial and trade conditions of 
the world; it contains clauses upon the efficacy 
of which may depend the very existence of our 
civilisation. Nevertheless there are few who can 
tell you what is in the Treaty of Versailles. 
You might have thought that although men differed 

[81] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


widely as to its merits, there would have been no 
difficulty in securing some measure of agreement 
as to its actual contents. Every endeavour was 
made to give full publicity to the draft when it was 
first presented to the Germans, and to the final 
document when signed. Even before the form of 
the draft was ever settled, the actual decisions were 
reported from day to day. Never was a treaty so 
reported and so discussed in every article and every 
particle of its constitution, and to-day you can pro¬ 
cure an official copy of it from any bookseller for 
the moderate price of 2s. 6d. In spite of that no 
two men who happen to profess diverse opinions 
as to its justice or injustice can agree as to its con¬ 
tents. 

A visitor to England in the year 1713 probably 
experienced the same perplexity in seeking infor¬ 
mation from a Whig and a Tory respectively as to 
the Treaty of Utrecht. So this treaty has become 
one of those fiercely debated subjects, as to which 
the contestants deliberately refuse to regard any 
testimony, or recognise the existence of any fact, 
which is in the least inconsistent with their particu¬ 
lar point of view. It has come to pass that the real 
Treaty of Versailles has already disappeared, and 
[82] 


THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES 


several imaginary versions have emerged. It is 
around these that the conflict rages. 

In France there exist at least two or three schools 
of thought concerning the Versailles Treaty. There 
is one powerful section which has always regarded 
it as a treasonable pact, in which M. Clemenceau 
gave away solid French rights and interests in a 
moment of weakness under pressure from Presi¬ 
dent Wilson and myself. That is the Poincare-Bar- 
thou-Pertinax school. That is why they are now, 
whilst in form engaged in enforcing the treaty, in 
fact carrying out a gigantic operation for amend¬ 
ing it without consulting the other signatories. 
This has come out very clearly in the remarkable 
report from a French official in the Rhineland which 
was disclosed in the London Observer . It is ob¬ 
vious from this paper that whilst the French govern¬ 
ment have worked their public into a frenzied state 
of indignation over the failure of Germany to carry 
out the Treaty of Versailles, they were the whole 
time deliberately organising a plot to overthrow 
that treaty themselves. Their representative on 
the Rhine was spending French money with the 
consent of the French government to promote a 
conspiracy for setting up an independent republic 

[83] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


on the Rhine under the protection of France. It 
was a deliberate attempt by those who disapproved 
of the moderation of the Treaty of Versailles to re¬ 
write its clauses in the terms of the militarist de¬ 
mands put forward by Marshal Foch at the Peace 
conference. Marshal Foch, the soul of honour, 
wanted to see this done openly and straightfor¬ 
wardly. What he would have done like the gentle¬ 
man he is, these conspirators would have accom¬ 
plished by deceit—by deceiving their Allies and by 
being faithless to the treaty to which their country 
had appended its signature. That is one French 
school of thought on the Treaty of Versailles. It 
is the one which has brought Europe to its present 
state of confusion and despair. 

There is the second school which reads into the 
treaty powers and provisions which it does not con¬ 
tain, and never contemplated containing. These 
critics maintain stoutly that M. Briand, and all 
other French prime ministers, with the exception 
of M. Poincare, betrayed their trust by failing to 
enforce these imaginary stipulations. They still 
honestly believe that M. Poincare is the first French 
minister to have made a.genuine attempt to enforce 
French rights under the treaty. 

[84] 



THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES 

In the background there is a third school which 
knows exactly what the treaty means, but dares 
not say so in the present state of French opinion. 
Perhaps they think it is better to bide their time. 
That time will come, and when it does arrive, let 
us hope it will not be too late to save Europe from 
the welter. 

In America there are also two or three divergent 
trends of opinion about this treaty. One regards 
it as an insidious attempt to trap America into the 
European cockpit, so as to pluck its feathers to 
line French and English bolsters. If anything 
could justify so insular an estimate it would be the 
entirely selfish interpretation which is put upon the 
treaty by one or two of the Allied governments. 
The other American party, I understand, defends 
it with vigour as a great human instrument second 
only in importance to the Declaration of Inde¬ 
pendence. There may be a third which thinks that 
on the whole it is not a bad settlement, and that 
the pity is a little more tact was not displayed in 
passing it through the various stages of approval 
and ratification. This party is not as vocal as the 
others. 

» 

In England we find at least three schools. 

[85] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

There are the critics who denounce it as a brutal 
outrage upon international justice. It is to them 
a device for extorting incalculable sums out of an 
impoverished Germany as reparation for damages 
artificially worked up. Then there is the other ex¬ 
treme—the “die-hard” section—more influential 
since it became less numerous, who think the treaty 
let Germany off much too lightly. In fact they 
are in complete agreement with the French Chauvi¬ 
nists as to the reprehensible moderation of its terms. 
In Britain also there is a third party which regards 
its provisions as constituting the best settlement, 
when you take into account the conflicting aims, 
interests, and traditions of the parties who had to 
negotiate and come to an agreement. 

But take all these variegated schools together, or 
separately, and you will find not one in a thousand 
of their pupils could give you an intelligent and 
comprehensive summary of the main principles of 
the treaty. I doubt whether I should be far wrong 
in saying there would not be one in ten thousand. 
Controversialists generally are satisfied to concen¬ 
trate on the articles in the treaty which are ob¬ 
noxious or pleasing to them as the case may be, 
and ignore the rest completely, however essential 
[ 86 ] 


THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES 

they may be to a true judgment of the whole. Most 
of the disputants are content to take their views 
from press comments and denunciatory speeches. 
Unhappily the explanatory speeches have been few. 
Some there are who have in their possession the full 
text—nominally for reference; but you will find 
parts of the reparations clauses in their copies black 
with the thumb-marks which note the perspiring 
dialectician searching for projectiles to hurl at the 
object of his fury. The clauses which ease and 
modify the full demand are treated with stern 
neglect, and the remainder of the pages are pure as 
the untrodden snow. You can trace no footprints 
of politicians, publicists, or journalists, in whole 
provinces of this unexplored treaty. The covenant 
of the League of Nations is lifted bodily out of 
the text, and is delivered to the public as a separate 
testament for the faithful so that the saints may 
not defile their hands with the polluted print which 
exacts justice. They have now come to believe 
that it never was incorporated in the Treaty of 
Versailles, and that it has nothing to do with that 
vile and sanguinary instrument. 

And yet the first words of this treaty are the 
following: 


[87] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


“The High Contracting Parties, 

“In order to promote international co-opera¬ 
tion and to achieve international peace and secur¬ 
ity 


“By the acceptance of obligations not to resort to 
war, 

“By the prescription of open, just and honour¬ 
able relations between nations, 

“By the firm establishment of the understandings 
of international law as the actual rule of conduct 
among Governments, and 

“By the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous 
respect for all treaty obligations in the dealings of 
organised peoples with one another, 

“Agree to this Covenant of the League of Na¬ 
tions 

Then follow the articles of the debated covenant. 

A speaker who took part recently in a university 
debate on the subject told me that the undergrad- 
[ 88 ] 


THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES 


uates exhibited the greatest surprise when he in¬ 
formed them that the League of Nations was 
founded by the Versailles Treaty. A few days ago 
I had a similar experience at the Oxford Union. I 
was speaking against a motion framed to condemn 
the principles of the treaty as unwise and unjust. 
In its defence I recalled some of its outstanding 
features. But as most of my narrative had no bear¬ 
ing on reparations it was greeted with impatience 
and cries of “Question” from a group of anti-Ver¬ 
sailles. They honestly thought I was travelling 
outside the motion in giving a short summary of 
the other sections of the treaty. To them it is all 
condensed in Mr. Keynes’s book, and other hostile 
commentaries. Anything which is inconsistent with 
these, or supplements the scanty or misleading 
statements they make, is deemed to be tainted and 
biassed. To refer to the text itself they regard as 
unfair, and as playing into the hands of the defend¬ 
ers of a wicked and oppressive pact. The actual 
treaty has been already put by them out of bounds, 
and you wander into its forbidden clauses on pain 
of being put into the guardroom by one or other of 
the intolerant factions who patrol the highways and 
byways of international politics. 


[89] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

In all the debates on the subject in the House 
of Commons I have only once heard the treaty itself 
quoted by a critic, and strangely enough that was 
by way of approval. 

I have indicated one important section of the 
treaty to which is accorded something of the rever¬ 
ence due to Holy Writ by an influential section 
of the public. This group would be shocked were 
they reminded that their devotion is given to a chap¬ 
ter in the hateful treaty. There is yet another 
large and important section which is completely* ig¬ 
nored by the critics—that which reconstructs Cen¬ 
tral Europe on the basis of nationality and the free 
choice of the people instead of on the basis of strat¬ 
egy and military convenience. This is the section 
that liberated Poland from the claws of the three 
carnivorous empires that were preying on its vitals, 
and restored it to life, liberty and independence. 
It is the section that frees the Danes of Schleswig 
and the Frenchmen of Alsace-Lorraine. For these 
oppressed provinces the Treaty of Versailles is the 
title-deed of freedom. Why are these clauses all 
suppressed in controversial literature? Here is an¬ 
other of the ignored provisions—that which sets up 
permanent machinery for dealing with labour prob- 
[90] 



THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES 


lems throughout the world, and for raising the 
standard of life amongst the industrial workers by 
means of a great international effort. No more 
beneficent or more fruitful provision was ever made 
in any treaty. It is so momentous and so com¬ 
pletely overlooked in general discussion, that I 
think it worth while to quote at length the general 
principles laid down by a provision which will one 
day be claimed as the first great international char¬ 
ter of the worker. 

“The High Contracting Parties recognise that 
differences of climate, habits and customs, of eco¬ 
nomic opportunity and industrial tradition, make 
strict uniformity in the conditions of labour difficult 
of immediate attainment. But, holding as they do, 
that labour should not be regarded merely as an 
article of commerce, they think that there are meth¬ 
ods and.principles for regulating labour conditions 
which all industrial communities should endeavour 
to apply so far as their special circumstances will 
permit. 

“Among these methods and principles, the fol¬ 
lowing seem to the High Contracting Parties to be 
of special and urgent importance:— 


[91] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


“First .—The guiding principle above enunciated 
that labour should not be regarded merely as a com¬ 
modity or article of commerce. 

“Second .—The right of association for all lawful 
purposes by the employed as well as by the em¬ 
ployers. 

“Third .—The payment to the employed of a 
wage adequate to maintain a reasonable standard 
of life as this is understood in their time and coun¬ 
try. 

“Fourth .—The adoption of an eight-hour day or 
forty-eight hour week as the standard to be aimed 
at where it has not already been attained. 

“Fifth .—The adoption of a weekly rest of at 
least twenty-four hours, which should include Sun¬ 
day wherever practicable. 

“Sixth .—The abolition of child labour and the 
imposition of such limitations on the labour of 
young persons as shall permit the continuation of 
their education and assure their proper physical 
development. 

“Seventh .—The principle that men and women 
should receive equal remuneration for work of 
equal value. 

“Eighth .—The standard set by law in each coun- 
[92] 







THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES 


try with respect to the conditions of labour should 
have due regard to the equitable economic treat¬ 
ment of all workers lawfully resident therein. 

“Ninth .—Each State should make provision for 
a system of inspection in which women should take 
part, in order to ensure the enforcement of the laws 
and regulations for the protection of the em¬ 
ployed.” 

It will take long before the principles propounded 
in the covenant of the league under the labour 
articles are fully and faithfully carried out, but in 
both a good deal of quiet and steady progress have 
already been attained. M. Albert Thomas is an 
admirable chief for the labour bureau. He has 
zeal, sympathy, tact, energy and great organising 
talent. He is pressing along with patience, as well 
as persistence. But that is another question. It 
raises grave issues as to the execution of the treaty. 
What I have to deal with to-day is the misunder¬ 
standings which exist as to the character of the 
treaty itself. The British public are certainly being 
deliberately misled on this point. Why are those 
sections which emancipate oppressed races, which 
seek to lift the worker to a condition above destitu- 

[93] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


tion and degradation, and which build up a break¬ 
water against the raging passions which make for 
war, never placed to the credit of the Treaty of 
Versailles? The type of controversialist who is 
always advertising his idealism has made a point 
of withholding these salient facts from the public 
which he professes to enlighten and instruct. 
There is no more unscrupulous debater in the ring 
than the one who affects to be particularly high- 
minded. I do not mean the man who is possessed 
of a really high mind, but the man who is always 
posing as having been exalted by grace above his 
fellows. He is the Pharisee of controversy. Be¬ 
ware of him, for he garbles and misquotes and sup¬ 
presses to suit his arguments or prejudices in a 
way that would make a child of this world blush. 

That is why I venture to put in a humble, al¬ 
though I fear belated, plea for the reading of the 
text, the whole text, and nothing but the text, of 
the Treaty of Versailles. Herein lies the only fair 
way of arriving at a just conclusion on the merits 
of a treaty which holds in its hands the destiny of 
Europe for many a generation. 


[ 94 ] 


VI 


1922 

The year nineteen hundred and twenty-two wit¬ 
nessed a genuine struggle on the part of the nations 
to re-establish peace conditions in the world. 

During 1919-20 and 1921 “the tarantella was 
still in their blood.” The mad war dance was still 
quivering in their limbs and they could not rest. 
The crackle of musketry was incessant and made 
needful repose impossible. There was not a coun¬ 
try in Europe or Asia whose troops were not firing 
shots in anger at some external or internal foe. 

America rang down the fire curtain until this 
hysterical frenzy had burnt itself out. Was she 
right ? It is too early yet to give the answer. The 
case is but yet “part heard”—many witnessing 
years whose evidence is relevant have not yet en¬ 
tered the box: it will, therefore, be some time before 
the verdict of history as to her attitude can be de¬ 
livered. 

But 1922 testifies to many striking symptoms of 

[95] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


recovering sanity on the part of the tortured con¬ 
tinents. Before 1922 you had everywhere the 
querulity of the overstrained nerve. The slightest 
offence or misunderstanding, however uninten¬ 
tional, provoked a quarrel, and almost every quarrel 
was followed by a blow. It was a mad world to 
live in. The shrieks of clawing nations rent the 
European night and made it hideous. A distin¬ 
guished general declared that at one period—I 
think it was the year of grace 1920—there were 
thirty wars, great and small, proceeding simulta¬ 
neously. Who was to blame? Everybody and no¬ 
body. Mankind had just passed through the most 
nerve-shattering experience in all its racking his¬ 
tory, and it was not responsible for its actions. Mil¬ 
lions of young men had for years marched through 
such a pitiless rain of terror as had not been con¬ 
ceived except in Milton’s description of the battle 
scenes when the fallen angels were driven headlong 
to the deep. And when the Angel of Peace led the 
nations out from the gates of hell, no wonder it 
took them years to recover sight and sanity. Nine¬ 
teen twenty-two was a year of restored composure. 

The outward visible sign was seen in the changed 
character of the international conferences held dur- 
[96] 


NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO 

ing the year. The ultimatum kind of conference 
gave way to the genuine peace conference. The old 
method insisted upon by French statesmen was to 
hammer out demands on the conference anvil and 
send them in the form of an ultimatum to nations 
who, in spite of peace treaties, were still treated as 
enemies; the new method was to discuss on equal 
terms the conditions of appeasement. 

Germany, having no fleet in the Pacific, was not 
invited to the Washington conference, and Russia 
was excluded for other reasons. But at Cannes 
Germany was represented, and at Genoa both Ger¬ 
many and Russia had their delegates. 

The Washi ngton conference was, in som e re- 
spects, the most remarkable inter nation a l confer¬ 
ence ever held^ It was the first time great nations 
commanding powerful armaments had ever sat 
down deliberately to discuss a voluntary limitation 
of their offensive and defensive forces. Restric¬ 
tions and reductions have often been imposed in 
peace treaties by triumphant nations upon their 
beaten foes. The Versailles treaty is an example 
of that operation. But at Washington the victors 
negotiated a mutual cutting-down of navies built 
for national safety and strengthened by national 

[97] 










WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

pride. The friends of peace therefore have solid 
ground for their rejoicing in a contemplation of 
substantial reductions already^effected in the naval 
programmes of the most powerful maritime coun¬ 
tries in the world—Britain, the United States of 
America, and Japan—as a direct .result of the 
Washington negotiations. 

American statesmanship has given a lead of 
which it is entitled to boast, and 1922 is entitled to 
claim that this triumph of good understanding has 
brought a measure of glory which will give it a 
peculiar splendour amongst the years of earth’s 
history. 

The gatherings at Cannes and Genoa can also 
claim outstanding merit in the large and growing 
family of international conferences. At Washing¬ 
ton the Allies alone foregathered. At Cannes and 
Genoa nations came together ‘which had only re¬ 
cently emerged out of deadly conflict with each 
other. At each conference I met on both sides men 
who had but just recovered from severe wounds 
sustained in this struggle. At Cannes French, 
Belgian, Italian, Japanese, as well as British min¬ 
isters and experts, sat down in council with German 
ministers and experts to discuss the vexed question 
[98] 




NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO 

of reparations without taunt or recrimination. 
There was a calm recognition not only of the needs 
of the injured countries, but also of the difficulties 
of the offending state. Outside and beyond the 
German problem there was a resolve to eliminate 
all the various elements of disturbance, political 
and economic, that kept Europe in a ferment and 
made its restoration impossible. 

Here.it was decided to summon all the late bel¬ 
ligerent nations to a great conference at Genoa to 
discuss reconstruction. To these were added the 
neutral nations of Europe. It was a great de¬ 
cision. There were three obstacles in the way of 
realising the programme. The first was the stipula¬ 
tion of France that the specific problems raised by 
the treaty of Versailles should be excluded alto¬ 
gether from the purview of the conference. This 
was a grave limitation* of its functions and chances. 
Still, if the •Cannes sittings had continued, an ar¬ 
rangement might have been arrived at with the 
Germans.which would have helped the deliberations 
of Genoa. The second obstacle was the refusal of 
America to participate in the discussions. Why 
did the American government refuse? There were 
probably good reasons for that refusal, but the 

[99] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


recording angel alone knows them all fully and ac¬ 
curately. The third obstacle was the fall of the 
Briand ministry, and the substitution of a less sym¬ 
pathetic administration. In spite of all these seri¬ 
ous drawbacks Genoa accomplished great things. 
It brought together into the same rooms enemies 
who had not met for years except on the battlefield. 
They conferred and conversed around the same 
table for weeks—at conferences, committees, and 
sub-committees. They broke bread and drank 
wine together at the same festive boards. Before 
the conference came to an end there was an atmos¬ 
phere of friendliness which was in itself a guaran¬ 
tee of peaceable relations, for the delegates who 
represented the nations at Genoa were all men of 
real influence in their respective countries. 

But however important the intangible result, 
there was much more achieved. The thirty nations 
represented in the assembly entered into a solemn 
pact not to commit any act of aggression against 
their neighbours. When they entered the confer¬ 
ence there were few of them who were not oppressed 
with suspicions that these neighbours meditated vio¬ 
lence against their frontiers. When they arrived 
at Genoa they were all anxious for peace, but ap- 
[ 100 ] 



NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO 

prehensive of impending war. Genoa dispelled 
those anxieties. 

One of the most promising results of the pact 
and the improved atmospheric conditions out of 
which it arose is the substantial reduction in the 
Bolshevik army. It has already been reduced to 
the dimensions of the French army, and we are 
now promised a further reduction. That removes 
a real menace to European peace. If the reduction 
of armies in the East of Europe is followed by a 
corresponding reduction in the West the reign of 
peace is not far distant. 

This is not the time to dwell upon the important 
agreements effected at Genoa on questions of ex¬ 
change, credit, and transport. All the recommen¬ 
dations made depend for their successful carrying 
out on the establishment of a real peace and a 
friendly understanding between nations. Peace 
and goodwill on earth is still the only healing 
evangel for idealists to preach and statesmen to 
practise. Without it plans and protocols must in¬ 
evitably fail. 

Where does peace stand? The weary angel is 
still on the wing, for the waters have not yet sub¬ 
sided. She may perhaps find a foothold in the 

[ 101 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

Great West, and Britain is fairly safe—not yet 
Ireland. 

But the continent of Europe is still swampy and 
insecure. The debate in the French Chamber on 
reparations is not encouraging. The only differ¬ 
ence of opinion in the discussion was that displayed 
between those who advocated an advance into the 
Ruhr, and the seizure of pledges further into Ger¬ 
man territory, and those who preferred “develop¬ 
ing” the left bank of the Rhine. Occupying, con¬ 
trolling, developing, annexing—they all mean the 
same thing; that the province to the left bank of 
the Rhine is to be torn from Germany and grafted 
into France. 

There is no peace in this talk. It is a sinister 
note on which to end the pacific music of 1922. 
You must interpret it in connection with another 
event of 1922—the Russo-German agreement. 
Since then Chicherin—a spirit of mischief incarnate 
—has almost made Berlin his abode. The men 
who are devoting their ingenuity to devising new 
torments for Germany are preparing new terrors 
for their own and their neighbours’ children. 

The year ends with rumours of great American 
projects for advancing large sums of money to all 
[ 102 ] 



NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO 


and sundry in the hope of settling the vexed ques¬ 
tion of German reparation. The loan, it is sur¬ 
mised, will be accompanied by guarantees on the 
part of France not to invade further German ter¬ 
ritory. Some go so far as to conjecture that it is 
to be an essential condition of participation in this 
Christmas bounty of Madame Rumour that France 
is to reduce her armies and to undertake not to ex¬ 
ceed Washington limits for her navies. 

Nobody seems to know, and I am only repeating 
the gossip of the press. But if the £350,000,000 
loan is likely to materialise, its projectors are wise 
in imposing conditions that would afford them some 
chance of receiving payment of a moderate interest 
in the lifetime of this generation. 

No prudent banker would lend money on the se¬ 
curity of a flaming volcano. 

London, December 20th, 1922. 


[103] 


VII 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 

1. The Rhine 

M. Clemenceau, in the remarkable series of 
speeches delivered in the United States of America, 
implies a breach of faith on the part of Britain in 
reference to the pact to guarantee France against 
the possibility of German aggression. England 
has no better friend in the whole of France than 
M. Clemenceau. Throughout a strenuous but con¬ 
sistent career he has never varied in his friendship 
for England. Many a time has he been bitterly 
assailed for that friendship. French journalists 
are not sparing of innuendo against those they hate. 
They hate fiercely and they hit recklessly, and M. 
Clemenceau, a man of scrupulous integrity, at one 
period in his stormy political life was charged by 
certain organs of the Paris press with being in the 
pay of England. If, therefore, he now does an in¬ 
justice to Britain I am convinced it is not from 
[104] 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 

blind hatred of our country, but from temporary 
forgetfulness of the facts. 

He states the facts with reference to the original 
pact quite fairly. It was proffered as an answer 
to those who claimed that the left bank of the 
Rhine should be annexed to France. 

There was a strong party in France which urged 
M. Clemenceau to demand that the Rhine should 
be treated as the natural frontier of their country, 
and that advantage should be taken of the over¬ 
whelming defeat of Germany to extend the boun¬ 
daries of France to that fateful river. For un¬ 
known centuries it has been fought over and across 
—a veritable river of blood. If French Chauvin¬ 
ism had achieved its purpose at the Paris confer¬ 
ence the Rhine would within a generation once more 
overflow its banks and devastate Europe. The 
most moderate and insidious form this demand took 
was a proposal that the German provinces on the 
left bank of the Rhine should remain in French 
occupation until the treaty had been fulfilled. 
That meant for ever. Reparations alone—skilfully 
handled by the Quai d’Orsay—would preclude the 
possibility of ever witnessing fulfilment. The argu¬ 
ment by which they supported their claim was the 

[105] 




WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

defencelessness of the French frontier without 
some natural barrier. France had been twice in¬ 
vaded and overrun within living memory by her 
formidable neighbour. The German military 
power was now crushed, and rich and populous 
provinces of the German Empire had been restored 
to France and Poland, but the population of Ger¬ 
many was still fifty per cent, greater than that of 
France and it was growing at an alarming rate, 
whilst the French population was at a standstill. 
German towns and villages were clamant with 
sturdy children. 

You cannot talk long to a Frenchman without 
realising how this spectre of German children 
haunts France and intimidates her judgment. 
These children, it is said, are nourished on ven¬ 
geance: one day the struggle will be resumed, and 
France has no natural defence against the aveng¬ 
ing hordes that are now playing on German streets 
and with the hum of whose voices German kinder¬ 
gartens resound. 

We were told the Rhine is the only possible line 
of resistance. Providence meant it to play that 
part, and it is only the sinister interference of 
statesmen who love not France that deprives 
[ 106 ] 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 

Frenchmen of this security for peace which a far- 
seeing Nature has provided. 

The fact that this involved the subjection to a 
foreign yoke of millions of men of German blood, 
history, and sympathies, and that the incorporation 
of so large an alien element, hostile in every fibre 
to French rule, would be a constant source of trou¬ 
ble and anxiety to the French Government, whilst 
it would not merely provide an incentive to Ger¬ 
many to renew war but would justify and dignify 
the attack by converting it into a war of liberation 
—all that had no effect on the Rhenian school of 
French politics. 

This school is as powerful as ever. In one re¬ 
spect it is more powerful, for in 1919 there was a 
statesman at the head of affairs who had the 
strength as well as the sagacity to resist their ill- 
judged claims. 

But what about 1922? Where is the foresight 
and where is the strength? There is a real danger 
that the fifteen years’ occupation may on one pre¬ 
text or another be indefinitely prolonged. When 
it comes to an end will there be a ministry in France 
strong enough to withdraw the troops? Before the 
fifteen years’ occupation is terminated will there be 

[107] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


a ministry or a series of ministries strong enough 
to resist the demand put forward without ceasing 
in the French press that the occupation should be 
made effective? 

Upon the answer to these questions the peace of 
Europe—the peace of the world, perhaps the life 
of our civilisation—depends. The pressure to do 
the evil thing that will once more spill rivers of 
human blood is insistent. The temptation is grow¬ 
ing, the resistance is getting feebler. America and 
Britain standing together can alone avert the catas¬ 
trophe. But they can do so only by making it clear 
that the aggressor—whoever it be—will have the 
invincible might of these two commonwealths ar¬ 
rayed against any nation that threatens to embroil 
the world in another conflict. 

There are men in Germany who preach ven¬ 
geance. They must be told that a war of revenge 
will find the same allies side by side inflicting pun¬ 
ishment on the peace-breakers. There are men in 
Franee who counsel annexation of territories popu¬ 
lated by another race. They must be warned that 
such a step will alienate the sympathies of Britain 
and America, and that when the inevitable war of 
liberation comes the sympathies of America and 
[ 108 ] 





WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 

Britain will be openly ranged on the side of those 
who are fighting for national freedom. 

The time has come for saying these things, and 
if they are not said in high places humanity will one 
day call those who occupy those places to a reckon¬ 
ing. 

The pact was designed to strengthen the hands 
of M. Clemenceau against the aggressive party 
which was then and still is anxious to commit 
France to the colossal error of annexing territory 
which has always been purely German. 

M. Clemenceau knows full well that Britain has 
been ready any time during the last three years 
up to a few months ago to take upon herself the 
burden of that pact with or without the United 
States of America. At Cannes early this year I 
made a definite proposal to that effect. It was a 
written offer made by me on behalf of the British 
government to M. Briand, who was then prime 
minister of France. 

I was anxious to secure the co-operation of 
France in a general endeavour to clear up the Euro¬ 
pean situation and establish a real peace from the 
Urals to the Atlantic seaboard. French suspicions 
and French apprehensions constituted a serious dif- 

[109] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


ficulty in the way of settlement, and I thought that 
if it were made clear to France that the whole 
strength of the British Empire could be depended 
upon to come to her aid in the event of threatened 
invasion French opinion would be in a better mood 
to discuss the outstanding questions which agitate 
Europe. 

International goodwill is essential to the re-es- 
tablishment of the shattered machinery of inter¬ 
national commerce. With a great country like 
France, to which the issue of the war had given a 
towering position on the continent of Europe, in a 
condition of fretfulness, it was impossible to settle 
Europe. 

Hence the offer which was made by the British 
government. M. Briand was prepared to welcome 
this offer and to proceed to a calm consideration 
of the perplexities of the European situation. It 
was agreed to summon a conference at Genoa to 
discuss the condition of European exchange, credit 
and trade. It was also resolved that an effort 
should be made to establish peace with Russia and 
to bring that great country once more inside the 
community of nations. A great start was made on 
the path of genuine appeasement. The German 
[ 110 ] 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 

Government were invited to send their chief Minis¬ 
ter to the Cannes conference in order to arrive at a 
workable settlement of the vexed question of repa¬ 
rations. The invitation received a prompt response, 
and Dr. Rathenau, accompanied by two or three 
leading ministers and a retinue of financial experts, 
reached Cannes in time to take part in the discus¬ 
sions. 

The negotiations were proceeding helpfully, and 
another week might have produced results which 
would have pacified the tumult of suspicious na¬ 
tions and inaugurated the promise of fraternity. 
But, alas, Satan is not done with Europe. A min¬ 
isterial crisis in France brought our hopes tumbling 
to the ground. The conference was broken up on 
the threshold of fulfilment. 

Suspicion once more seized the tiller, and Eu¬ 
rope, just as she seemed to be entering the harbour 
of goodwill, was swung back violently into the 
broken seas of international distrust. The offer 
made by Britain to stand alone on the pact of guar¬ 
antee to France was rejected with disdain. We 
were told quite brutally that it was no use without 
a military convention. This we declined to enter 
into. Europe has suffered too much from military 

[in] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


conventions to warrant the repetition of such a dis¬ 
astrous experiment. 

The pact with Britain lies for the moment in the 
waste-paper basket. But we never flung it there. 
M. Clemenceau ought to have made his complaint 
in Paris against men of his own race and not in 
New York against Englishmen. With the pact 
went the effort to make peace in Europe. 

The history of Genoa is too recent to require any 
recapitulation of its features. The new French 
ministiy did not play the part of an inviting gov¬ 
ernment responsible for pressing to a successful 
end the objects of Cannes, but rather that of the 
captious critic who had to be persuaded along every 
inch of the road and who threatened at every ob¬ 
stacle to turn back and leave the rest of Europe to 
struggle along with its burden, amid the mocking 
laughter of France. 

I am not complaining of M. Barthou. He did 
his best under most humiliating conditions to re¬ 
main loyal to the conference which his government 
had joined in summoning. But his task was an im¬ 
possible one. He was hampered, embarrassed and 
tangled at eveiy turn. Whenever he took any step 
[ 112 ] 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 

forward he was lassoed by a despatch from Paris. 
I have good authority for stating that he received 
over eight hundred of these communications in the 
course of the conference! 

What could the poor man do under such be¬ 
wildering conditions? The other European coun¬ 
tries were perplexed and distracted. They were 
anxious that Genoa should end in a stable peace. 
There was no doubt about the sincerity, the pas¬ 
sionate sincerity, of the desire for peace through¬ 
out Europe, but European nations could not help 
seeing that one of the great powers was working 
for a failure. They had a natural anxiety not to 
appear to take sides. 

It is a marvel that in spite of this unfortunate 
attitude adopted by the French Government a pact 
was signed which has, at any rate, preserved the 
peace in Eastern Europe for several months. 

Before the conference we heard of armies being 
strengthened along frontiers and of movements of 
troops with a menacing intent from the Baltic to the 
Black Sea. Genoa at least dispelled that cloud. 
But a permanent peace has not yet been established 
and the pact with Russia will soon expire. I am, 

[113] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


however, hopeful that the spirit of Genoa will stand 
between contending armies and prevent the clash 
of swords. 

All this, however, is leading me, away from an 
examination of M. Clemenceau’s suggestion that 
Britain did not keep faith in the matter of guaran¬ 
teeing France against German aggression. 

The offer was definitely renewed at Cannes, and 
M. Poincare has not accepted it. 

I have my own opinion as to why he has not 
done so. It is not merely that he does not wish 
to set the seal of his approval upon a predecessor’s 
achievement. I am afraid the reason is of a more 
sinister kind. If France accepts Britain’s guaran¬ 
tee of defence of her frontier every excuse for an¬ 
nexing the left bank of the Rhine disappears. 

If this is the explanation, if French ministers 
have made up their minds that under no conditions 
will they, even at the end of the period of occupa¬ 
tion, withdraw from the Rhine, then a new chapter 
opens in the history of Europe and the world, with 
a climax of horror»such as mankind has never yet 
witnessed. 

The German provinces on the left bank of the 
Rhine are intensely German—in race, language, 
[114] 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 

tradition and sympathies. There are seventy mil¬ 
lions of Germans in Europe. A generation hence 
there may be a hundred millions. They will never 
rest content so long as millions of their fellow- 
countrymen are under a foreign yoke on the other 
side of the Rhine, and it will only be a question of 
time and opportunity for the inevitable war of lib¬ 
eration to begin. 

We know what the last war was like. No one 
can foretell the terrors of the next. The march 
of science is inexorable, and wherever it goes it is 
at the bidding of men, whether to build or to de¬ 
stroy. Is it too much to ask that America should, 
in time, take an effective interest in the develop¬ 
ment along the Rhine? To that extent I am in 
complete accord with M. Clemenceau. Neither 
Britain nor America can afford to ignore the 
manoeuvres going on along its banks. It is a far 
cry from the Rhine to the Mississippi, but not so 
far as it used to be. 

There are now graves not far from the Rhine 
wherein lies the dust of men who, less than six years 
ago, came from the banks of the Mississippi, with 
their faces towards the Rhine. 

London , December 2nd; 1922. 


[115] 


VIII 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 

2. The Rkine (Continued) 

The breakdown of the London conference, and 
especially the reason for that breakdown, proves 
the warning I uttered in my last chapter was neces¬ 
sary and timely. 

M. Poincare demanded the occupation of the only 
rich coalfield left to Germany as a guarantee for 
the carrying out of impossible terms. 

It is because I am profoundly convinced that the 
policy represented by this proj ect will lead to trou¬ 
ble of the gravest kind for Europe and the world 
that I felt moved to sound a note of warning. I 
knew it would provoke much angry misrepresenta¬ 
tion. I am accustomed to that. I deemed it to be 
my duty to face it. 

The statement I made in my last chapter about 
the existence of a strong party in France which 
regarded the Rhine as the natural barrier of that 
[ 116 ] 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 


country has provoked a storm of denial, repudia¬ 
tion and indignation. It is denounced as a wicked 
invention. Some are amazed at the impudence of 
the calumny. Where is the party? France knows 
nothing of it. Is it not a monster which has ema¬ 
nated from the brain of the enemy of France ? 

Repudiations have their value, especially if they 
come from men of authority, and I shall bear in¬ 
vective with the fortitude to which all men who 
wish to be happy though politicians should be hard¬ 
ened provided I elicit denials which may render 
future international mischief difficult. 

But a further perusal of the evidence on which 
I based my statement has served to deepen my ap¬ 
prehensions. What was the statement? Let me 
quote the actual words I used:— 

“There was a strong party in France which urged 
M. Clemenceau to demand that the Rhine should 
be treated as the natural frontier of their country, 
and that advantage should be taken of the over¬ 
whelming defeat of Germany to extend the boun¬ 
daries of France to that fateful river. 

“The most moderate and insidious form this de¬ 
mand took was a proposal that the German prov- 

[117] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

inces on the left bank of the Rhine should remain 
in French occupation until the treaty had been ful¬ 
filled. That meant for ever. Reparations alone— 
skilfully handled by the Quai d’Orsay—would pre¬ 
clude the possibility of ever witnessing fulfilment. 

“The pact was designed to strengthen the hands 
of M. Clemenceau against the aggressive party 
which was then, and still is, anxious to commit 
France to the colossal error of annexing territory 
which has always been purely German.” 

What was the basis on which I made this asser¬ 
tion? It was thoroughly well known to all those 
who were engaged in the operations of the Peace 
conference. The Rhine was the background of all 
manoeuvre for weeks and months. Whether the 
subject matter was the League of Nations, the Ger¬ 
man fleet, or the status of Fiume, we knew that the 
real struggle would come over the Rhine. 

On one hand, How much would France demand? 
on the other, How much would the Allies concede? 
There was a subconscious conflict about the Rhine 
throughout the whole discussion, however irrelevant 
the topic under actual consideration happened to be. 

But unrecorded memories are of little use as 

[ 118 ] 



WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 


testimony unless corroborated by more tangible 
proofs. Do such proofs exist? I will recall a few. 

There was a party which considered the Rhine 
to be the only natural frontier of France. It was 
a strong party, with a strong man as its spokesman 
—in many ways the strongest in France—Marshal 
Foch. His splendid services in the war gave him a 
position such as no soldier in France or in any other 
country could command. The soldier who, by his 
genius, leads a nation to victory, possesses a meas¬ 
ure of influence on the public opinion of the people 
he has saved from destruction such as no other in¬ 
dividual can aspire to—as long as his services are 
fresh in the memory of his fellow-countrymen. 
That, I admit, is not very long. Gratitude is like 
manna—it must be gathered and enjoyed quickly, 
for its freshness soon disappears. But in the early 
months of 1919 Marshal Foch was still sitting at 
the banquet table of popular favour enjoying the 
full flavour of grateful recognition. His word on 
all questions affecting the security and destiny of 
France was heard with a deference which no other 
man in France could succeed in securing. He has 
also a quality which is not usually an attribute of 
generalship: he is a lucid, forceful and picturesque 

[ 119 ] 




WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


speaker. He was, therefore, listened to for what 
he was, for what he said, and for the way he said it. 

What did he say? He said a good deal on the 
subject of the Rhine frontier and I cannot quote it 
all. I will take a few germane sentences out of his 
numerous utterances on the subject. On the 19th 
day of April, 1919, there appeared in the London 
Times an interview with Marshal Foch. From that 
interview I take these salient passages:— 

“ 'And now, having reached the Rhine, we must 
stay there / went on the Marshal very emphatically. 
‘Impress that upon your fellow-countrymen. It is 
our only safety, their only safety. We must have 
a barrier. We must double-lock the door. De¬ 
mocracies like ours, which are never aggressive, 
must have strong natural military frontiers. Re¬ 
member that those seventv millions of Germans will 
always be a menace to us. Do not trust the appear¬ 
ances of the moment. Their natural characteristics 
have not changed in four years. Fifty years hence 
they will be what they are to-day.’ 

•••••• • 

“From the table at the other end of the room Mar¬ 
shal Foch brought a great map, six or eight feet 
[ 120 ] 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 


square, on which the natural features of this part 
of western Europe were marked. The Rhine was 
a thick line of blue. To the west of the river the 
Marshal had drawn in pencil a concave arc repre¬ 
senting the new frontier that France will receive 
under the Peace treaty. It was clearly an arbitrary 
political boundary conforming to no natural fea¬ 
ture of the land. 

“ ‘Look at that,’ said Marshal Foch. ‘There is 
no natural obstacle along that frontier. Is it there 
that we can hold the Germans if they attack us 
again? No. Here! here! here!’ and he tapped the 
blue Rhine with his pencil. 

“ ‘Here we must be ready to face our enemies. 
This is a barrier which will take some crossing. If 
the Germans try to force a passage over the Rhine 
—ho! ho! But here’—touching the black pencilled 
line running north-west from Lorraine past the 
Saar valley to the Belgian frontier—‘here there is 
nothing.’ 


“ ‘No; if you are wise you insist on having your 
locks and your wall, and we must have our armies 
on the Rhine. Some people object that it will take 

[ 121 ] 





WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

many troops to hold the Rhine. Not so many as it 
would take to hold a political frontier. For the 
Rhine can be crossed only at certain places, whereas 
the new political frontier of France can be broken 
anywhere and would have to be held in force along 
its entire length . 5 55 

He expounded his doctrine in greater detail in 
an official memorandum which, as commander-in¬ 
chief of the Allied armies, he submitted to M. 
Clemenceau:— 

“To stop the enterprises towards the west of this 
nation, everlastingly warlike, and covetous of the 
good things belonging to other people, only re¬ 
cently formed and pushed on to conquest by force 
regardless of all rights and by ways the most con¬ 
trary to all law, seeking always the mastery of the 
world, Nature has only made one harrier—the 
Rhine . This harrier must he forced on Germany . 
Henceforward the Rhine will be the western fron - 
tier of the Germanic peoples . . . 

He repeated this demand in a subsequent memo¬ 
randum. Many of us recall his dramatic irruption 
[ 122 ] 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 

into the placid arena of the Peace conference in 
May, 1919, still brandishing the same theme. 

It may be said that Marshal Foch is not and does 
not pretend to be a statesman. He is only a great 
soldier. Nevertheless, his political influence was 
so great that even in 1920 he overthrew the most 
powerful statesman in France within a month of 
his triumphant return at the polls with a huge sup¬ 
porting majority in the French Parliament. It 
was Marshal Foch who, by his antagonism, was 
responsible for M. Clemenceau’s defeat at the presi¬ 
dential election of 1920. But for Marshal Foch’s 
intervention M. Clemenceau would have been to¬ 
day president of the French republic. 

Why was he beaten, at the height of his fame, 
by a candidate of infinitely less prestige and power? 
The wrath of Marshal Foch and his formidable fol¬ 
lowing was excited against M. Clemenceau because 
the latter had, under pressure from the Allies, gone 
back on the agreed French policy about the Rhine. 
M. Tardieu, as is well known, was one of the two 
most prominent ministers in M. Clemenceau’s ad¬ 
ministration, and closely associated with his chief 
in the framing of the Peace treaty. He has writ¬ 
ten a book, and in that book he gives at length a 

[123] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

document which he handed to the Allies on March 
12th, 1919, containing the following proposal:— 

“In the general interest of peace and to assure 
the effective working of the constituent clause of 
the League of Nations, the western frontier of Ger¬ 
many is fixed at the Rhine. Consequently Ger¬ 
many renounces all sovereignty over, as well as any 
customs union with, the territories of the former 
German empire on the left bank of the Rhine.” 

There is a sardonic humour about the words “in 
the general interest of peace and to assure the effec¬ 
tive working of the constituent clause of the League 
of Nations.” 

But it demonstrates that at that date M. Cle- 
menceau and his minister had become converts to 
the doctrine of the Rhine as the natural boundary 
of Germany. American and British pressure sub¬ 
sequently induced him to abandon this position 
and, as I said in a previous chapter, the pact was 
part of the argument addressed to him. But the 
party of the Rhine never forgave. Hence his fail¬ 
ure to reach the presidential chair. It was an hon¬ 
ourable failure and will ever do him credit. 

[124] 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 

The reasons assigned for that defeat by the 
Annual Register, 1919-20—certainly not a partisan 
authority—prove that even an unexcitable chron¬ 
icler laboured then under the delusion—if it be a 
delusion—which possessed me when I wrote the 
offending article. Explaining the remarkable de¬ 
feat the Annual Register says:— 

. . Clemenceau’s supporters contended that 
the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were satis¬ 
factory from the French point of view; his oppo¬ 
nents declared that he had given way too much to 
the American and British standpoints and that the 
peace was unsatisfactory, particularly in respect of 
the guarantees for the reparations due to France 
and in the matter of the French eastern frontier . 
It will he remembered that a large body of French 
opinion had desired that France should secure the 
line of the Rhine as her eastern frontier” 

I can if necessary quote endless leading articles 
in French journals and writings and speeches of 
French politicians. Men of such divergent tem¬ 
peraments and accomplishments as M. Franklin 
Bouillon and M. Tardieu gave countenance to this 

[125] 





WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


claim that Germany should be amputated at the 
Rhine. One carried the theme along on the torrent 
of his clattering lava and the other on the dome of 
an iceberg. Later on at the reception of Marshal 
Foch when he was elected a member of the French 
Academy, M. Poincare, turning at one moment in 
his discourse to the Marshal, said in reference to the 
veteran General’s well-known attitude on the Peace 
treaty, “Ah, Monsieur le Marechal, if only your ad¬ 
vice had been listened to.” Has he also gone back 
on an opinion so histrionically expressed? Let us 
hope for the best. 

I know it will be said that although the boun¬ 
daries of Germany were to end at the Rhine, the 
province on the left bank was not to be annexed, 
but to be reconstituted into an “independent” re¬ 
public. What manner of independence and what 
kind of republic? All German officers were to be 
expelled; it was to be detached by special provision 
from the economic life of Germany upon which it 
is almost entirely dependent for its existence. It 
was not to be allowed to associate with the father- 
land. 

The Rhine which divided the new territory from 
Germany was to be occupied in the main by French 
[ 126 ] 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 


troops: the territories of the independent republic 
were to be occupied by foreign soldiers. Its young 
men were to be conscripted and trained with a view 
to absorbing them into French and Belgian armies 
to fight against their own countrymen on the other 
side of the Rhine. The whole conditions of life in 
the “free and independent republic” were to be dic¬ 
tated by an “accord” between France, Luxemburg 
and Belgium, and, in the words of Marshal Foch, 
“Britain would be ultimately brought in.” 

But I am told that these proposals did not mean 
annexation. Then what else did they mean? You 
do not swallow the oyster. You only first give it an 
independent existence by detaching it from its hard 
surroundings. You then surround it on all sides 
and absorb it into your own system to equip you 
with added strength to prey on other oysters! What 
independence! And what a republic! It would 
have been and was intended to be a sham republic. 
Had the plan been adopted it would have been a 
blunder and a crime, for which not France alone 
but the world would later on have paid the penalty. 

In the face of these quotations and of these un¬ 
doubted facts, can any one say that I calumniated 
France when I said there was a powerful party in 

[127] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

that country which claimed that the Rhine should 
be treated as the natural barrier of Germany, and 
that the Peace treaty should be based upon that 
assumption? 

Let it be observed that I never stated that this 
claim had the support of the French democracy. 
The fact that the treaty, which did not realise that 
objective, secured ratification by an overwhehning 
majority in the French parliament and subse¬ 
quently by an emphatic verdict in the country, 
demonstrates clearly that the French people as a 
whole shrank with their invincible good sense from 
following even a lead they admired on to this path 
of future disaster. But the mere fact that there 
are potent influences in France that still press this 
demand, and take advantage of every disappoint¬ 
ment to urge it forward, calls for unremitting vigi¬ 
lance amongst all peoples who have the welfare of 
humanity at heart. 

In conclusion I should like to add that to de¬ 
nounce me as an enemy of France because I dis¬ 
agree with the international policy of its present 
rulers is a petulant absurdity. 

During the whole of my public career I have 
been a consistent advocate of co-operation between 
[ 128 ] 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 

the French and British democracies. I took that 
line when it was fashionable in this country to fawn 
on German imperialism. 

During the war I twice risked my premiership 
in the effort to place the British army under the 
supreme command of a French general. To pre¬ 
serve French friendship I have repeatedly given 
way to French demands, and thus have often an¬ 
tagonised opinion in this country. But I cannot 
go to the extent of approving a policy which is en¬ 
dangering the peace of the world, even to please one 
section of a people for whose country I have always 
entertained the most genuine affection. 

London, December 9th, 1922. 


[129] 


IX 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 

3 . The Paris Conference 

The third conference with M. Poincare over 
reparations has ended, like its two predecessors, in 
a complete breakdown. 

The first was held in August, the second in De¬ 
cember, and the third fiasco has just been witnessed. 

I congratulate Mr. Bonar Law on having the 
courage to face a double failure rather than agree 
to a course of policy which would in the end prove 
disappointing,, and probably disastrous. 

Agreement amongst allies is in itself a desirable 
objective for statesmen to aim at, but an accord to 
commit their respective countries to foolishness is 
worse than disagreement. 

France and Britain must not quarrel, even if they 
cannot agree; but if French ministers persist in the 
Poincare policy, the companionship of France and 
Britain over this question will be that of parallel 
lines which never meet, even if they never conflict. 

[130] 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 

What is the object of this headstrong policy? 
Reparations? 

There is no financier of repute, in any quarter of 
the globe, who will agree that these methods will 
bring the Allies any contributions towards their 
impoverished resources. 

At the August conference all the experts were 
in accord on this subject, but whilst these methods 
will produce no cash, they will produce an unmis¬ 
takable crash. 

My recollections of the August discussions en¬ 
able me to follow with some understanding the 
rather confused reports which have so far reached 
me here. 1 

It is common ground amongst all the Allies that 
Germany cannot under present conditions pay her 
instalments. 

It is common ground that she must be pressed to 
put her finances in order, and by balancing her 
budget restore the efficiency of her currency, so as 
to meet her obligations. 

But M. Poincare insisted that, as a condition of 
granting the moratorium, pledges inside German 
territory should be seized by the Allies. 


i This chapter was written at Honda (Spain). 


[131] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


These pledges consisted of customs already es¬ 
tablished, and of new customs to be set up on the 
Rhine and around the Ruhr, so that no goods should 
be permitted to pass from these German provinces 
into the rest of Germany without the payment of 
heavy customs dues. 

The other proposed pledges were the seizure of 
German forests, of German mines, and of 60 per 
cent, of the shares in certain German factories. 

Mr. Bonar Law, judging by his official com¬ 
munique after the breakdown of the conference, 
seems to have raised the same objections to these 
pledges as I put forward at the August confer¬ 
ence. 

They would bring in nothing comparable to the 
cost of collection; 

They would provoke much disturbance and irri¬ 
tation and might lead to consequences of a very 
grave character. 

In fact, these pledges are nothing but paper and 
provocation. 

The customs barrier on the Rhine was tried once 
before, and was a complete failure. 

[132] 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 

It was tried then as a sanction and not as a means 
of raising money. For the former purpose it may 
have achieved some measure of success, but from 
the point of view of collecting money it was a ludi¬ 
crous fiasco. 

There are at the present moment hundreds of 
millions of paper marks collected at these new toll¬ 
houses still locked up in the safe of the Reparations 
Commission. They are admittedly worthless. 

As long as these tolls lasted, they were vexatious; 
they interfered with business; they dealt lightly 
with French luxuries working their way into Ger¬ 
many, but laid a heavy hand on all useful commod¬ 
ities necessary to the industry and life of the people. 

They were ultimately withdrawn by consent. 
M. Poincare now seeks to revive them. 

The seizure of German forests and mines will 
inevitably lead to even more serious consequences. 
The allied control established in the far interior of 
Germany would require protection. 

Protection means military occupation in some 
shape or other. 

Military occupation of these remote areas means 
incidents, and incidents quickly ripen into more 
serious complications. 


[133] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

Hence the reluctance of the British government 
of which I was the head to concur in this dangerous 
policy. Hence the refusal of Mr. Bonar Law’s 
government to accept the responsibility for sanc¬ 
tioning such a policy. Even logically it is inde¬ 
fensible. 

There are only two alternative points of view. 
One is that Germany cannot pay under present 
conditions until her finances are restored, and that 
a moratorium ought to be granted for a period 
which will enable that financial restoration to ma¬ 
ture. The second is that Germany can pay, that 
she is only shamming insolvency, and that all that 
you have to do is to apply the thumbscrew firmly 
and cash will be forthcoming. 

Logically I can understand either of these two 
alternatives, but I fail to comprehend the reason 
for a proposal that will grant a moratorium on the 
ground that Germany cannot pay, and at the same 
time apply the thumbscrew until she pays. 

I am glad the British Prime Minister has had the 
wisdom not to associate himself with a policy which 
will bring inevitable discredit upon those who share 
the responsibility of enforcing it. 

[134] 


WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 


Meanwhile, the prospects of Europe’s recovery 
are once more to be retarded by the vain stubborn¬ 
ness of some of her rulers. 

Ronda (Spain), January 6th, 1923. 




[135] 


X 


REPARATIONS 

What is the reparations problem? Why does it 
appear to be further from solution than ever? 

The great public in all lands are perplexed and 
worried by its disturbing insolubility. It keeps 
them wondering what may happen next, and that 
is never good for a nerve-ridden subject like post¬ 
war Europe. 

The real trouble is not in solving the problem 
itself, but in satisfying the public opinion which 
surrounds it. I do not mean to suggest that it is 
an easy matter to ascertain what payments Ger¬ 
many can make, or for Germany to pay and keep 
paying these sums once they have been ascertained. 
But if the difficulty were purely financial it could 
be overcome. The heart of the problem lies in the 
impossibility at present of convincing the expectant, 
indignant, hard-hit and heavily burdened people of 
[136] 


REPARATIONS 


France that the sums so fixed represent all that 
Germany is capable of paying. 

The question of compelling a country to pay 
across its frontiers huge sums convertible into the 
currency of other countries is a new one. At first 
it was too readily taken for granted that a wealth 
which could bear a war debt of £8,000,000,000 could 
surely afford to bear an indemnity of £6,000,000,- 
000 provided that this smaller sum were made a first 
charge on the national revenues; and it took time for 
the average mind to appreciate the fundamental 
difference between payment inside and transmission 
outside a country. 

When I think of the estimates framed in 1919 
by experts of high intelligence and trained expe¬ 
rience as to Germany’s capacity to pay cash over 
the border I am not disposed to complain of the 
impatience displayed by French taxpayers at the 
efforts made at successive conferences to hew down 
those sanguine estimates to feasible dimensions. I 
am content to point with pride to the fact that the 
common sense of the more heavily burdened British 
taxpayer has long ago taught him to cut his loss 
and keep his temper. When his example is fol- 

[137] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

lowed all round, the reparations question is already 
solved. 

When public opinion in all the Allied countries 
has subsided into sanity on German reparations, 
as it already has in Britain, financiers can soon find 
a way out, and trade and commerce will no longer 
be scared periodically from their desks by the seis¬ 
mic shocks given to credit every time a French min¬ 
ister ascends the tribune to make a statement on 
reparations. 

Regarding the payment of reparations solely 
from the point of view of finance, the issues can be 
stated simply, and I think solved readily. 

It is always assumed by those who have never 
read the Treaty of Versailles, and the letter that 
accompanied it, that this much-abused and little- 
perused document fixed a fabulous indemnity for 
payment by Germany. The treaty may have its 
defects; that is not one of them, for it fixed no sum 
for payment, either great or small. 

It stipulated that a reparations commission 
should be set up in order, inter alia , to assess the 
damage inflicted by Germany on Allied property 
and the compensation for injury to life and limb in 
Allied countries. 

[138] 


REPARATIONS 


In the second place—and this is also overlooked 
—it was to ascertain how much of that claim Ger¬ 
many was capable of paying. On both these ques¬ 
tions Germany is entitled to be heard before ad- 
j udication. 

It is in accordance with all jurisprudence that 
as Germany was the aggressor and the loser she 
should pay the costs. But it would be not only op¬ 
pressive but foolish to urge payment beyond her 
capacity. 

The amount of damage was to be ascertained 
and assessed by May, 1921. Capacity was to be 
then determined and revised from time to time, 
according to the varying conditions. Even so fair 
a controversialist as the eminent Italian statesman 
Signor Nitti has ignored the latter provision in the 
Versailles treaty. No wonder that he should, for 
there are multitudes who treat every alteration in 
the annuities fixed in May, 1921, as if it were a 
departure from the Treaty of Versailles to the 
detriment of the victors; whereas every modification 
made was effected under the provisions and by the 
machinery incorporated* in the treaty for that ex¬ 
press purpose. 

But there has undoubtedly been a departure from 

[139] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

the treaty—a fundamental departure. It has, how¬ 
ever, been entirely to the detriment of the van¬ 
quished. In what respect? I propose to explain, 
for the whole trouble has arisen from this change in 
the treaty. The treaty provided that the body to 
be set up for deciding the amount to be paid in re¬ 
spect of reparations should consist of a representa¬ 
tive each of the United States of America, the Brit¬ 
ish Empire, France, Italy, and Belgium. 

With the exception of the United States of 
America, all these powers are pecuniarily interested 
in the verdict. At best it was therefore on the face 
of it not a very impartial tribunal. Still, Britain, 
as a great trading community, was more interested 
in a settlement than in a few millions more or less 
of indemnity wrung out of Germany; and Italy also 
was a country which had large business dealings 
with Germany and would not therefore be tempted 
to take a violently anti-German view on the com¬ 
mission. The presence therefore of the United 
States of America, Britain and Italy together on 
the commission constituted a guarantee for modera¬ 
tion of view. 

Now the only disinterested party has retired 
from the tribunal. The most interested party is in 
[140] 


REPARATIONS 


the chair, with a casting vote on certain questions. 
That is not the treaty signed by Germany. 

If you sign an agreement to pay a sum to be 
awarded by A, B, C, D, and E, trusting for a fair 
hearing largely to the influence of A, who is not 
only very powerful but who is the only completely 
disinterested referee and A then retires from the 
board of arbitrators, you are entitled to claim that 
the character of the agreement is changed. The 
representatives of France and Belgium on the Repa¬ 
rations Commission are honourable men who are 
most-anxious to do justice, but they are watched by 
a jealous, vigilant and exacting opinion constantly 
ready to find fault with concession and to over¬ 
power moderating judgment. 

The balance of the treaty has therefore been en¬ 
tirely upset. What is really needed is to restore 
that balance so as to secure a fair verdict on the 
only question in issue—how much Germany can 
pay. 

When you come to consider that issue you must 
view the claim for reparations as you would any 
ordinary debt. You must make up your mind 
whether you wish to ruin the debtor or to recover 
the cash. If there are no sufficient realisable assets, 

[141] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

then, if you want your money, you must keep your 
debtor alive. If you want beef from your cow you 
must forgo the milk. If your object is to destroy 
your debtor, you press for payment of more than 
he can be reasonably expected to pay, and then 
seize his house, his lands, and his chattels, whether 
they can be disposed of or not. 

On the other hand, if you want your money, you 
will find out what he can pay, and then proceed 
judiciously, patiently, and firmly to recover that 
amount. By that I do not mean what he can pay 
by condemning himself to a life of servitude and 
poverty. No brave nation will stand that long. 
That is not a method of recovering an old debt, 
but of creating a new one. I mean, what a nation 
can be expected to pay steadily without revolt for 
a whole generation. 

If you scrape the butter from the bread of every 
German child for thirty years you may add to the 
sum of your indemnity a milliard or two of gold 
marks. That is not what was intended by the 
Treaty of Versailles. Hungry faces make angry 
hearts, and the anger spreads further than the hun¬ 
ger. I mean, what Germany can pay without con¬ 
demning a generation of workers to Egyptian 
[142] 


REPARATIONS 


bondage, and their children to semi-starvation. 
Every oppression, if persisted in, ultimately ends 
in the ruin of the Red Sea for the oppressors. Eu¬ 
rope has only just escaped with great loss from its 
waters. We do not want to be overwhelmed in an¬ 
other. 

How are you to arrive at the exact figure of the 
annuities Germany can reasonably be expected to 
pay without creating these intolerable conditions 
for her people? That is the question. The answer 
was given in the treaty as signed: by setting up a 
commission to inquire and determine. That com¬ 
mission has been weakened, and its character al¬ 
most destroyed by the defection of the United 
States of America. 

Is it possible to find a substitute? I am afraid a 
reference of that question to a new committee of 
experts would not advance matters, for each coun¬ 
try would demand a representative on that commit¬ 
tee, and that would only mean the Reparations 
Commission over again under another name. 

The only hope of a fair and final decision is to 
secure the presence of a representative of the 
United States of America on the adjudicating 
body, whatever it may be. Is that impossible? 

[143] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


I need hardly say that I am not venturing to 
express any opinion as to the American refusal to 
ratify the treaty as a whole. I am only stating 
quite frankly my view that, unless America takes a 
hand in reparations, real settlement will be post¬ 
poned until the hour of irreparable mischief strikes. 
If for reasons of which I am not competent to judge 
America cannot occupy her vacant chair on the tri¬ 
bunal which may decide fateful issues for humanity, 
I despair of any real progress being made. 

Allied ministers can accept from a body repre¬ 
senting the leading powers who won the war de¬ 
cisions they dare not take on their own responsi¬ 
bility. That is the essence of the matter. It is no 
use blaming politicians. If they of their own initia¬ 
tive attempt to ride down public sentiment, which 
alone confers authority upon them, they will in¬ 
evitably fail. In every country there are plenty 
of itching partisans ready to take advantage of tac¬ 
tical blunders committed by political opponents or 
personal rivals. But the judgment of an interna¬ 
tional tribunal is another matter, and statesmen can 
accept it and act upon it without being taxed with 
responsibility for its conclusions. 

British opinion cannot and will not accept a set¬ 
tle] 


REPARATIONS 


tlement based on the assumption that abatements 
in the sum claimed for reparations, if and when 
made, must be discounted by the British taxpayer 
alone. 

France undoubtedly suffered more severely from 
the ravages of war than any other belligerent. But 
that is recognised in the proportion allocated to her 
of the reparations payments. She is to be paid 52 
per cent, of the total, i. e. } more than all the other 
Allied countries put together. 

Britain comes next in the damage sustained by 
her people, and she is given 22 per cent. In many 
respects she has suffered more heavily than any 
other Allied country, especially in taxation and in 
trade. She is willing to stand in with the Allies 
for loss as well as for profit, but she will resent bit¬ 
terly the suggestion that the loss must necessarily 
be her share, whilst such profit as there is belongs 
to others. 

The American people, who receive no part of 
the compensation awarded and collected, will a 
fortiori take the same view of their obligations in 
the matter. They certainly will not see the force 
of a settlement to be made at their expense, as if 
they had been condemned to pay an indemnity. 

[145] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


The question is not what remission or indulgence 
shall be granted to Germany, but what payment 
she is capable of making. If Germany can pay a 
large indemnity France gets 52 per cent, of that, 
and Britain only 22 per cent. If Germany can only 
make a disappointing payment, France still gets 
52 per cent, and Britain 22 per cent. There is, 
therefore, no ground for debiting Britain and 
America with the cost of reduced expectations. 

The offer to hand over the worthless “C” bonds 
to the British Empire in return for her claims is an 
insult to the intelligence of the British public. Let 
us get away from these shifts on to the straight 
road. Back to the treaty—that is the real remedy. 
There is no need to revise it—all that is required is 
to restore it. 

If America reappears on the arbitrating tribunal 
she need not accept the rest of the treaty. Then 
a fair and enduring settlement would soon ensue, 
this irritating sore would rapidly heal, and the con¬ 
dition of the world would steadily improve. 
AlgeciraSj January 1st, 1923. 


[ 146 ] 


XI 


MR. HUGHES’S NEW HAVEN SPEECH 

The preceding chapter was written at Algeciras 
on January 2nd, 1923. On January 3rd there ap¬ 
peared in the Spanish papers a compressed report 
of the speech delivered by the American Secretary 
of State, Mr. Hughes, at New Haven. It made 
suggestions on the subject of reparations which 
were obviously intended for consideration at the 
forthcoming Paris conference. I knew the chair¬ 
man of that conference, M. Poincare, would not be 
too anxious to bring these proposals to the notice 
of his colleagues, but I had some hope that the Brit¬ 
ish, Italian, and Belgian premiers might do so. I 
therefore cabled the following message to the Brit¬ 
ish and American press:— 

“I have read with gladness Secretary Hughes’s 
important speech. As far as I can judge from com¬ 
pressed report appearing in the local paper of this 
remote corner of Spain his suggestions and mine 
travel in same direction. Earnestly hope Paris 

[147] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

conference will give American proposals priority 
of consideration. All other expedients will but 
postpone mischief which will in the end have to be 
redeemed with compound interest at usurious rates 
by an embarrassed Europe.” 

I constantly refer to this speech in subsequent 
articles, and as it has been suggested that the inter¬ 
pretation I placed on it is not borne out by the text, 
I append the full report which appeared in The 
Times of December 30th, 1922:— 

“Mr. Hughes, the Secretary of State, in a speech 
which he delivered before the American Historical 
Association at New Haven, Connecticut, to-night 
lifted yet another corner of the veil which has 
shrouded the immediate plans of the United States 
government. Much of his address concerned the 
Washington conference of 1921, but it ended with 
a discussion of economic conditions in Europe which 
are of prime importance. 

“Mr. Hughes began with the admission that ‘we 
cannot dispose of these problems by calling them 
European, for they are world problems, and we 
cannot escape the injurious consequences of failure 
[148] 


MR. HUGHES’S NEW HAVEN SPEECH 

to settle them.’ They were, however, European 
problems in the sense that they cannot be solved 
without the consent of the European governments, 
and the crux of the situation lay in the settlement of 
reparations. ‘There will be no adjustment of other 
needs, however pressing, until a definite and ac¬ 
cepted basis for the discharge of reparations claims 
has been fixed. It is futile to attempt to erect any 
economic structure in Europe until the foundation 
is laid.’ 

“Then followed a passage referring to the at¬ 
tempts to link up the debts owed to the United 
States with the question of reparations or with pro¬ 
jects of cancellation, attempts which had been stead¬ 
ily resisted. It led up to a discussion of the atti¬ 
tude of the United States towards reparations, 
‘standing, as it does, a distinct question, and as one 
which cannot be settled unless the European gov¬ 
ernments concerned are able to agree.’ First came 
a denial that America desired to see Germany re¬ 
lieved of her responsibility for the war, or of her 
just obligations, or that America wished that 
France should lose ‘any part of her just claims.’ 
On the other hand, America did not wish to see a 
prostrate Germany. Some Americans had sug- 

[149] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

gested that the United States should assume the 
role of arbitrator, but Mr. Hughes did not think 
‘we should assume such a burden of responsibility.’ 

“From this point the speech deserves quotation 
in full: 

“ ‘But the situation,’ said Mr. Hughes, ‘does 
call for a settlement upon its merits. The first 
condition of a satisfactory settlement is that the 
question should be taken out of politics. Statesmen, 
have their difficulties, their public opinion, the exi¬ 
gencies they must face. It is devoutly to be hoped 
that they will effect a settlement among themselves, 
and that the coming meeting in Paris will find a 
solution. But if it does not, what should be done? 

“ ‘The alternative of forcible measures to obtain 
reparations is not an attractive one. No one can 
foretell the extent of the serious consequences which 
might ensue from such a course. Apart from polit¬ 
ical results, I believe that the opinion of experts is 
that such measures will not produce reparation pay¬ 
ments, but might tend to destroy the basis of those 
payments, which must be found in economic recu¬ 
peration. If, however, statesmen cannot agree, and 
such an alternative is faced, what can be done? Is 
there not another way out? The fundamental con- 
[150] 


MR. HUGHES’S NEW HAVEN SPEECH 

dition is that in this critical moment the merits of 
the question as an economic one must alone be re¬ 
garded. Sentiment, however natural, must be dis¬ 
regarded; mutual recriminations are of no avail; 
reviews of the past, whether accurate or inaccurate, 
promise nothing; assertions of blame on the one 
hand and excuses on the other come to naught. 

“ ‘There ought to be a way for statesmen to 
agree upon what Germany can pay, for no matter 
what claims may be made against her that is the 
limit of satisfaction. There ought to be a way to 
determine that limit and to provide a financial 
plan by which immediate results can be obtained 
and European nations can feel that the founda¬ 
tions have been laid for their mutual and earnest 
endeavours to bring about the utmost prosperity to 
which the industry of their people entitles them. 

“ ‘If statesmen cannot agree and the exigencies 
of public opinion make their course difficult, then 
there should be called to their aid those who can 
point the way to a solution. 

“ ‘Why should they not invite men of the highest 
authority in finance in their respective countries— 
men of such prestige, experience, and honour that 
their agreement upon the amount to be paid and 

[151] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


upon the financial plan for working out payments 
would be accepted throughout the world as the most 
authoritative expression obtainable? The govern¬ 
ments need not bind themselves in advance to ac¬ 
cept the recommendations, but they can at least 
make possible such an inquiry with their approval 
and free the men who may represent their country 
in such a commission from any responsibility to 
foreign offices and from any duty to obey political 
instructions. 

“ Tn other words, they may invite an answer to 
this difficult question from men of such standing 
and in such circumstances of freedom as will ensure 
a reply prompted only by knowledge and con¬ 
science. I have no doubt that distinguished Ameri¬ 
cans would be willing to serve on such a commis¬ 
sion. If the governments saw fit to reject the rec¬ 
ommendation upon which such a body agreed they 
would be free to do so, but they would have the ad¬ 
vantage of impartial advice and of an enlightened 
public opinion. The peoples would be informed 
that the question would be rescued from assertion 
and counter-assertion and the problem put upon its 
way to solution. 

[152] 


MR. HUGHES’S NEW HAVEN SPEECH 

“ ‘I do not believe that any general conference 
would answer the purpose better, much less that 
any political conference would accomplish a result 
which prime ministers find it impossible to reach. 
But I do believe that a small group, given proper 
freedom of action, would be able soon to devise a 
proper plan. It would be time enough to consider 
forcible measures after such opportunity had been 
exhausted.’ 

“Mr. Hughes’s closing words were: 

“ ‘There lies the open broad avenue of oppor¬ 
tunity, if those whose voluntary action is indispens¬ 
able are willing to take advantage of it. And once 
this is done, the avenues of American helpfulness 
cannot fail to open hopefully.’ ” 

The argument developed by Mr. Hughes in this 
speech is identical with that upon which I based 
my appeal in the previous chapter for an impartial 
investigation into Germany’s capacity, and he con¬ 
cludes with a proposal which is in effect identical 
with mine. He does not state categorically that 
the American government would be prepared to be 
officially represented on the commission. But when 

[153] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

he says, “I have no doubt that distinguished Ameri¬ 
cans would be willing to serve on such a commis¬ 
sion,’’ it means that the government would be in¬ 
directly represented. The Allied governments 
would certainly have consulted the government of 
the U.S.A. as to the American representative 
nominated to sit on the commission, and no Ameri¬ 
can expert would be appointed without full assur¬ 
ance that he was acceptable to the government of 
his country. 

It is a misfortune that such important proposals 
should have been put forward so timorously that 
those who wished to ignore them could easily pre¬ 
tend they had never heard them made. Speeches 
delivered even by Secretaries of State at an 
academic function in a small provincial town might 
very well be overlooked in foreign chancelleries, 
whose postbags bulge with weighty despatches from 
many lands, without any suggestion of studied 
neglect. It was clear from Mr. Bonar Law’s sub¬ 
sequent attitude in the course of the debate in the 
House of Commons on the Ruhr invasion that he 
at any rate had not seen Mr. Hughes’s New Haven 
deliverance. Timid diplomatic flutterings make no 
impression in a great situation, and so lead to noth- 
[154] 


MR. HUGHES’S NEW HAVEN SPEECH 


ing. This is an excellent example of how not to 
speak if you wish to be heard, and of how to speak 
if you have no desire to be heeded. 

London, July 4th, 1923. 


[ 155 ] 


XII 


THE FRENCH INVASION OF THE RUHR 

France has once more jumped on the prostrate 
form of Germany, and the sabots have come down 
with a thud that will sicken the hearts of multitudes 
on both sides of the Atlantic whose friendship for 
France stood the losses and griefs of a four years’ 
war. 

Germany having been overthrown and disarmed 
after a prodigious effort, involving a strain upon 
the combined strength of America, Italy, and the 
whole British Empire, as well as France, and her 
arms bound with the thongs of a stern treaty, the 
process of dancing upon her while she is down can 
at any time now be performed with complete im¬ 
punity by any one of these powers alone. 

The spectacle every time it is repeated, provides 
much satisfaction to those who indulge in the barren 
delights of revenging the memory of past wrongs. 
There is no doubt some joy for the unsportsman- 
[156] 




FRENCH INVASION OF THE RUHR 

like mind in kicking a helpless giant who once 
maltreated you and who, but for the assistance of 
powerful neighbours, would have done so a second 
time. 

But what good will it bring devastated France 
or her overtaxed Allies? The additional coal and 
timber that will be wrung out of Germany will 
barely cover the direct cost of collection. Although 
Germany bears the extra cost, the expense of these 
punitive measures must all in the end diminish the 
means of reparation, and therefore fall on the 
victor. 

How many students of the problem of repara¬ 
tions have ever taken the trouble to ascertain the 
extent to which the maintenance of Allied armies 
of occupation has already drained the resources of 
Germany? Between direct cash payments, the cost 
of supplies, and outlay in labour and material for 
building huge barracks, these armies have already 
cost Germany 6,000,000,000 gold marks—roughly 
1,200,000,000 dollars, or over £300,000,000. 

How much better it would have been if most of 
this money had gone towards rebuilding the dev¬ 
astated area! 

It is not without significance, now that war is 

[157] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


being waged against Germany for what the Ameri¬ 
can representative in Paris termed her technical 
default, to recollect that, between the expense of 
the army of occupation and contributions already 
made towards reparations, Germany has already 
paid to the Allies over three times the amount of 
the total indemnity exacted by Bismarck in 1871. 

This is without making any allowance for the 
vast and highly developed colonies which she sur¬ 
rendered. Let, therefore, no one approach this 
problem as if he were dealing with a recalcitrant 
country that is deliberately refusing to acknowledge 
any of her obligations under a treaty which she has 
signed. 

The costs of the last war are acknowledged to be 
irrecoverable. It is difficult enough to find the 
means for payment of damages. Who will pay the 
growing cost of this new war? 

So far I have referred only to the direct outlay 
upon these aggressive measures. The indirect cost 
to victor and vanquished alike will be crushing. 

It is already accumulating. The mere threat has 
depreciated the value of the franc, and thus reduced 
its purchasing capacity abroad. This loss must be 
borne by the French consumer. There may be a 
[158] 


FRENCH INVASION OF THE RUHR 

rally; but I shall be surprised if the improvement is 
more than temporary. 

All that is obvious for the moment to the un¬ 
trained eye is the way in which the mark is drag¬ 
ging the French and Belgian franc slowly along its 
own downward course. 

As the distance between them lengthens and the 
invisible cord which ties them together becomes 
more and more attenuated, it may ultimately snap 
and the franc be released from this dangerous as¬ 
sociation. That I doubt, for a bankrupt Germany 
means a country to which even the most hopeful 
cannot look as a means of redeeming French 
deficits. 

Once that is clear to the French peasant he will 
not so readily part with his savings, and the real 
difficulties of French finance will begin at that 
stage. A policy, therefore, which demoralises the 
German currency is one which is also fatal to the 
solvency of French finance. 

Let us follow the probable sequence of events. 
The terrified German mark is rushing headlong to 
the bottom of the pit where the Austrian krone is 
already lost beyond rescue. 

As long as reparation coal is dug out by bayonets. 

[159] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


and reparation timber is cut down by swords, it is 
idle to talk of restoring the mark by putting Ger¬ 
man finance in order. 

No tariff, however nimble, can keep pace with 
the runaway mark. It would baffle the most re¬ 
sourceful finance minister to adapt his budget to a 
currency which disappears beyond the horizon 
while he is sitting at his desk to pen his proposals. 

If the mere threat of force has produced such a 
panic, what will be the effect of the actual measures? 
It is safe to predict that the advance of French 
troops into Germany will not restore the com¬ 
posure of the frightened mark and arrest its flight. 

What, then, becomes of the hope of renewed pay¬ 
ments of the annuity? At best Germany could only 
be expected to pay when her foreign trade was so 
improved that she could provide a margin out of 
her exports with which to pay her annuities. Her 
foreign trade is largely dependent upon her foreign 
exchanges. These are now destroyed beyond pros¬ 
pect of recovely for years. 

Britain proposed a voluntary moratorium for a 
short term of years in order to place Germany in 
a position where she could at the end of that term 
pay a reasonable annuity. The French govern- 
[ 160 ] 


FRENCH INVASION OF THE RUHR 

ment have in effect substituted a compulsory mora¬ 
torium for an indefinite period with no prospect of 
payment in sight. 

The only chance of securing an early instalment 
of reparation payments was by pressing Germany 
to put her finances in order and giving her fair time 
in which to do so. The only chance of negotiating 
a loan on German security to assist France to pay 
for the repair of her devastated provinces, and to 
enable her to put her own finances in order, was by 
restoring the stability of German currency. 

French statesmen have deliberately thrown both 
these chances away. The effect on the value of their 
own currency must be grave, and Frenchmen will 
have to pay in increased cost of living for a venture 
dictated by short-sighted and short-tempered states¬ 
manship. 

When one thinks of the consequences one is 
driven to ask whether French politicians are really 
seeking reparations or are pursuing another pur¬ 
pose quite incompatible with the recovery of money 
payments under the treaty. 

This is the wrong road to reparations. It leads 
in exactly the opposite direction. 

Whither, then, does it lead? There is no doubt 

[ 161 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

that its effect will be ruinous as far as German in¬ 
dustry is concerned. I have already dealt with its 
disastrous influence upon German currency, and 
with the indirect effect of a rapidly depreciating 
currency upon German foreign trade. The seizure 
of the Ruhr mines will have another serious effect. 

Even now the result of the compulsory aliena¬ 
tion of so much of Germany’s coal supply in the 
Ruhr, in Silesia, and the Saar, from German indus¬ 
try, has diminished German productiveness. The 
fuel deficiency thereby created inside Germany has 
been partially supplied by purchases of coal from 
outside sources. The necessity for providing gold 
to pay for foreign coal has added considerably to 
Germany’s financial difficulties. 

A still larger foreign purchase will be the in¬ 
evitable result of the forcible diversion of large 
quantities of Ruhr coal to France and Italy, with 
further financial embarrassments as a consequence. 

That is bad enough. But I fear worse. Will the 
German miner work with the same regularity and 
efficiency for a foreign master as he does for a Ger¬ 
man employer? Is there the least possibility of the 
production being maintained at its present level? 

The influence of this added muddle on world 

[ 162 ] 


FRENCH INVASION OF THE RUHR 

trade is incalculable. Nobody gains; everybody is 
a loser by the move. How is a Germany whose em¬ 
barrassed finances are made still more involved— 
how is a Germany whose industry becomes more 
and more difficult—how is a Germany reduced to 
despair to be of the slightest use to France, Belgium, 
Italy, or anybody else? 

The feather-headed scribes who have advocated 
this rash policy assume that France will be helped 
because Germany will thus be reduced to impo¬ 
tence. For how long? 

The disintegration of Germany is not an unlikely 
consequence of this move. I know that is the ex¬ 
pectation. Frenchmen still hanker after the days 
when Saxons and Bavarians and Wurtembergers 
were allies, and almost vassals, of France against 
Prussia. It was the lure that led the Third Napo¬ 
leon to his ruin. It is the attraction which is now 
drawing France once more to a sure doom. The 
policy will bring no security to France in the fu¬ 
ture. It deprives her of all hope of reparations in 
the immediate present. There will no longer be a 
Germany to pay. It would be too hopeless a task 
to attempt recovery from each of the severed 
states. 


[ 163 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


But what of increased security? Nothing can 
keep Germans permanently apart. They will, at 
the suitable moment reunite under more favour¬ 
able conditions, freed from external as well as in¬ 
ternal debt. France will have lost her reparations 
and only retained the hatred of an implacable foe 
become more redoubtable than ever. 

How would Europe have fared in the interval 
whilst France was learning from events what every 
other country can see now? There is no knowing 
what will happen when a brave people of 60,000,000 
find themselves faced with utter ruin. Whether 
they turn to the left or to the right will depend on 
questions of personal leadership, which are not yet 
determined. All we can be sure of is that they can 
hardly go on as they are, maintaining an honest 
struggle for ordered freedom and democratic self- 
government. The French proclamation, with its 
threat of “severest measures in case of recalci¬ 
trancy,” is ominous of much that may happen. No 
people accustomed to national independence have 
ever been able long to tolerate a foreign yoke. 

Chancellor Cuno’s action is the first manifesta¬ 
tion of the spirit of revolt. It will certainly grow 
in intensity. The lash will then fall, sooner or 
[164] 


FRENCH INVASION OF THE RUHR 

later, and Germany will be inevitably driven to 
desperate courses. A Communist Germany would 
infect Europe. European vitality is so lowered by 
exhaustion that it is in no condition to resist the 
plague. Would a reactionary Germany be much 
better—brooding and scheming vengeance? 

Russia, with her incalculable resources of men 
and material, is at hand, needing all that Germany 
can best give and best spare. The Bolshevik lead¬ 
ers only require what Germany is so well fitted to 
supply in order to reorganise their country and 
convert it into the most formidable state in Europe 
or Asia. 

Nations hard pressed on the East have in the 
past moved forward irresistibly to the West. In 
obedience to the same law a people hard pressed on 
the West will look to the East. 

When the French troops marched on Essen they 
began a movement the most far-reaching, and prob¬ 
ably the most sinister in its consequences, that has 
been witnessed for many centuries in Europe. And 
these are the people who, after fifty years of patient 
and laborious waiting, have demonstrated to the 
world in 1918 the stupidity of abusing victory in 
1871. 


[ 165 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


If the teacher so soon forgets his own special les¬ 
son the pupil is not likely to remember when fury 
overcomes terror. 

Algeciras, January 15th, 1923. 


[ 166 ] 


XIII 


LOST OPPORTUNITIES 

The French government, having conspicuously 
failed to win its anticipated coup, is doubling the 
stakes each time it loses. When will it end? And 
where will it end? It is ill gambling with human 
passions. They are all engaged in this wild ven¬ 
ture—on both sides of the table. Pride, greed, 
vanity, obstinacy, temper, combativeness, racial an¬ 
tagonisms, but also patriotism, love of justice, 
hatred of wrong and high courage. Each side 
draws from the same arsenal of fiery human emo¬ 
tions. Unless some one steps in to induce a halt I 
fear the result will be devastating. 

France has now abandoned all hope of being able 
to run the mines, railways, and workshops of the 
Ruhr by military agencies. In these days you can¬ 
not shoot every worker who fails to excavate so 
many hundredweights of coal per diem, or who re¬ 
fuses to fill a wagon or drive a locomotive when 
and by whomsoever he is told to do so. France 

[167] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

cannot provide the necessary complement of miners 
and railwaymen from outside to fill vacancies cre¬ 
ated by sulky workers. And even if she could it 
would take many months ere they become suffi¬ 
ciently accustomed to their new conditions to work 
without peril to themselves. So a new policy has 
been improvised. It is nothing less than the siege 
of Germany. Sixty millions of Germans are to be 
starved into surrender. That is a long business, as 
every one knows who has been engaged on the dif¬ 
ficult operations of strike breaking. We have often 
witnessed workers with little support or sympathy 
from the rest of the community hold out for weeks 
after their funds have been exhausted. In Ger¬ 
many all classes are united in resistance. The na¬ 
tional pride fortifies endurance and incites to sacri¬ 
fice. And the ports are still open. Meanwhile in¬ 
cidents may happen, developments may occur which 
will create a situation that will baffle all the re¬ 
sources the invaders can command. 

It is very little use looking backward. But there 
are many who are disposed to say that the invasion 
of the Ruhr was bound to come and the sooner the 
safer. The Ruhr coal mines were the wild oats of 
reparation. Get it over quickly. The headache 
[ 168 ] 


LOST OPPORTUNITIES 

will bring repentance and France will then settle 
down to a quiet life. That is the argument. I 
must enter an emphatic protest against this view. 
If this ill-judged enterprise had been put off for a 
few more months I do not believe any French gov¬ 
ernment would have embarked upon it. There is 
no French statesman of any standing who, in his 
heart, believes in its wisdom. Now that the credit 
of France is involved in its success they will all 
support it. But French opinion, as a whole, was 
moving with startling rapidity from this policy. 
The Parisian pulse was still feverish, but the prov¬ 
inces had completely calmed down. Vacancies oc¬ 
curring in the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies 
and the provincial assemblies during several 
months have afforded an opportunity of testing real 
French opinion and the results have been sensa¬ 
tional. At election after election, fought in typical 
constituencies all over France, the champions of 
Ruhrism have been beaten by emphatic majorities. 
Masses of French workmen have always opposed 
this policy. The peasant in every land always 
moves slowly. But there can be no doubt that the 
French peasant has had enough of military adven¬ 
tures. His sons were never numbered amongst the 

[ 169 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

‘‘exempts,” and the losses in the peasant homes of 
France were appalling. Driving through the vil¬ 
lages in agricultural France you find yourself ask¬ 
ing, “Where are the young men?” The answer in¬ 
variably comes, “This village suffered severely in 
the war.” You will receive the same answer in the 
next village, and the next. We cannot wonder, 
therefore, that by-elections in rural as well as in 
urban France display an unmistakable weariness of 
plans which involve the marching of armed French¬ 
men into hostile territory. The sorrowing people 
of France have good reason to shrink from any 
course of action that leads to further shedding of 
blood. 

For these reasons I have steadily favoured every 
scheme that had the effect of postponing decision 
as to the Ruhr. Delay meant ultimate defeat for 
the Chauvinists. That is why they strove so hard 
to rush their government into this precipitate ac¬ 
tion. The abrupt termination of the Paris confer¬ 
ence was their opportunity and they seized it with 
tingling fingers. Until then there had never been 
a clean break on which violence could be founded. 
The friends of moderation both here and on the 
continent had seen to that. There had been ref- 
[ 170 ] 


LOST OPPORTUNITIES 


erence of questions for the scrutiny of experts and 
calming adj ournments to await their report. When 
it arrived there were endless suggestions and coun¬ 
ter-suggestions to meet difficulties. In the end Eu¬ 
rope was saved from the catastrophe of once more 
handing over its destinies to the guidance of blind 
force. Unhappily, weariness or impatience induced 
the Paris negotiators in a few hours to drop the 
reins which had for at least four years held the 
furies from dashing along their career of destruc¬ 
tion. There were many alternative plans that might 
have been discussed. There was the proposal to 
refer the whole question to the League of Nations. 
It is true that when I suggested it in August last 
M. Poincare summarily rejected it. But the Allies 
also rejected M. Poincare’s proposals by a majority 
of four to one at that conference. That did not 
prevent his repeating them in January—and this 
time he succeeded in winning over the majority to 
his view. A little more persistence and less pes¬ 
simism might have persuaded Belgium, Italy and 
Japan to aid our appeals to France to trust rather 
to the League of Nations than to the uncertainties 
of war. 

What is still more inexplicable is the failure of 

[ 171 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


the conference to take any note of Mr. Secretary 
Hughes’s New Haven speech. Neglected oppor¬ 
tunities litter the path of this troublesome question. 
There were the Cannes conversations, broken off 
just as they were reaching fruition. Had they been 
continued another week they would have ended in 
a helpful settlement which would have brought 
reparations to France, confidence to Germany, and 
peace to Europe. They struck on one of the many 
sunken reefs which bestrew the French political 
seas, and it will not surprise me to find that the 
whole cargo of reparations disappeared then be¬ 
yond salvage into the deep with these shipwrecked 
negotiations. 

Again, Germany threw away a great opportunity 
at Genoa when all the nations of Europe came to¬ 
gether for the first time to discuss their troubles in 
the spirit of equality and amity. It is true that 
reparations were excluded at the instance of France 
from the programme of the conference. But the 
spirit engendered by a friendly settlement of all 
other outstanding questions would have rendered a 
reasonable and temperate consideration of repara¬ 
tions inevitable. Germany, by its foolish staging 
of its Russian agreement, made all that impossible. 

[ 172 ] 


LOST OPPORTUNITIES 

Resentment and suspicion were once more equipped 
with a scourge and they used it relentlessly to drive 
out all goodwill for Germany from the purlieus of 
that great congress. Another lost opportunity. 

Then there was the bankers’ committee, ap¬ 
pointed to consider the question of raising an inter¬ 
national loan to help France to finance the repair 
of her devastated area and also to assist Germany 
to restore her demoralised currency. I remember 
how eager poor Rathenau was to float that loan and 
how sanguine he was that it would succeed. He 
was confident that the German nationals who have 
invested their gold in other lands could be induced 
to subscribe heavily to the loan. The bankers con¬ 
cerned—all were of the highest reputation in the 
financial world—were confident that if German 
reparations were fixed at a reasonable sum investors 
throughout the world would gladly put their money 
into a great international loan which would help to 
restore Europe. The French government testily 
declined to consider the essential conditions indi¬ 
cated by the bankers. Another lost opportunity, 
and Europe once more lumbered along its dreary 
way to seek another. 

It came with Mr. Hughes’s famous speech. It 

[ 173 ] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

was clearly the result of prolonged consideration. 
For weeks there had been rumours of much con¬ 
sultation in Washington on the state of Europe, 
and we were encouraged to hope that America 
meant business. The result was Mr. Secretary 
Hughes’s offer. It was made four days before the 
Paris conference and was obviously intended to be 
discussed by the Allies there. An endeavour has 
been made to minimise the importance of this 
American approach to Europe, but it is incompre¬ 
hensible to me how so momentous a pronouncement 
has been treated as if it were merely the casual 
utterance of a politician who had to find some topic 
of more or less interest with which to illuminate a 
discourse. Another opportunity lost—perhaps the 
greatest—perhaps the last. Never has luck striven 
so hard to save stupidity. But luck loses its temper 
easily and then it is apt to hit hard. 

London, February 15th, 1923. 


[ 174 ] 


XIV 


FRENCH SCHEMES 

“French troops occupying fresh German terri¬ 
tory.” “Further advance into Germany.” “Rein¬ 
forcements.” “French cut off the British bridge¬ 
head on the Rhine.” “Proposals for new coinage 
in the Ruhr.” What is it all leading to? Is it 
really reparations? Signor Nitti, who has made a 
thorough study of all the documents bearing on 
French designs against Germany, has come defi¬ 
nitely to the conclusion that these measures have 
no reference to the recovery of damages for the 
devastated area, but that they are all taken in the 
execution of a vast project for securing French 
control over all the coal and iron of continental 
Europe. He supplies chapter and verse for his 
theory. Something has undoubtedly roused the 
suspicions of Signor Mussolini. They come rather 
late in the day to be effective. He naturally does 
not relish the idea of an Italy whose coal and steel 
supplies are placed at the mercy of a gigantic trust 

[175] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


directed from Paris. Italy has no coal and iron 
of her own. Her interest is, therefore, in a free 
market. Hence Signor Mussolini’s alarm. Is 
there any ground for it? Let those who imagine 
that Italian statesmen are unnecessarily disturbed 
read the discussions in the French press leading up 
to the speeches recently delivered by M. Millerand, 
M. Barthou, and M. Poincare. 

With regard to M. Barthou’s intervention, I feel 
I must, as one of the founders of the Reparations 
Commission, say a word. There were important 
questions of amount, method, and time which could 
not be determined before the signature of the peace 
treaty and could not be settled at all without giv¬ 
ing Germany a full opportunity of being heard. 
Hence the appointment of the Reparations Com¬ 
mission. It was called into existence to settle these 
questions after hearing evidence and deliberating 
on its effect. Of this commission M. Barthou is 
now chairman. He, therefore, presides over a body 
which has committed to its charge judicial func¬ 
tions of a momentous character. He has to adjudi¬ 
cate from time to time on the case presented by 
Germany under a multitude of different heads. 
Inflammatory speeches on the very subjects upon 
[176] 


FRENCH SCHEMES 

which he has to preserve judicial calm are quite in¬ 
compatible with his position. When he occupied 
the same post M. Poincare ultimately recognised 
that he could not continue to write controversial 
articles on questions which might come before him 
for decision as a judge. He, therefore, very prop¬ 
erly resigned his commissionership. 

But to revert to the speeches delivered by these 
eminent statesmen. If they mean what the actual 
words convey, then France means to stick to the 
Ruhr. Not by way of annexation. Oh, no. That, 
according to M. Barthou, is a “foolish, mendacious 
and stupid” lie. But France means to hang on to 
the gages until reparation is paid. What are the 
gages? The industries of the Ruhr. If the French 
government is to control the industries which rep¬ 
resent the life of this prosperous area for thirty 
years it assumes greater authority over the district 
than it exercises over the mining area of the Pas de 
Calais. In its own mining districts no government 
takes upon itself—except during a war—to give di¬ 
rections as to the destination and distribution of 
the coal produced. But there are indications that 
the control over the Ruhr industries is to be of a 
much more far-reaching character than this. And 

[177] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

this is where the hints—broad hints—thrown out 
by the French press come in. France, in order to 
secure the payment of the reparation instalments in 
future, is to be given shares in these great mines and 
industries. What proportion of shares? Amongst 
the gages demanded by M. Poincare in August of 
last year were sixty per cent, of the shares in cer¬ 
tain pivotal German industries in the Rhine area. 
Now the Ruhr industries are clearly to be included 
within the scope of the demand. France has the 
iron ore of Lorraine and the coal of the Saar valley. 
Her financiers have been engaged in buying up coal 
mines in Silesia. If she can secure the controlling 
interest in the Ruhr mines and Belgium and Poland 
can be persuaded to join in the deal, then the con¬ 
tinent of Europe will be at the mercy of this im¬ 
mense coal and iron combine. 

I said in the previous chapter that the ports were 
still open. As long as they are, Central Europe 
can protect itself to a certain extent against this 
gigantic trust, for the products of Britain and 
America will be available. Bu that possibility is to 
be provided against. Nothing is to be left to 
chance. One of the gages is to be control over Ger¬ 
man customs. How can Germany balance her 
[178] 




FRENCH SCHEMES 

budget without a revenue? How can she raise a 
revenue without a tariff? What more productive 
tariff than a duty on foreign coal and metal manu¬ 
factures? And thus all competitive products will 
be excluded from the German markets. The com¬ 
bine will be supreme. 

It is true that if this cynical scheme comes off 
there is an end of reparations—for the independ¬ 
ence of German industry is strangled and its life 
will soon languish. But there are signs that French 
enterprise has abandoned all idea of recovering 
reparations and that it is now brooding upon loot 
—on an immense scale. For the discussions in the 
French press contemplate even wider and more far- 
reaching developments than those involved in the 
control of German industries. Italy, Poland, and 
even Russia are to be brought in. The high line 
taken for years by the Parisian papers about “no 
traffic with murder” is being given up. Instead 
we have much sentimental twaddle about restoring 
the old friendly relations between France and Rus¬ 
sia—of course, for a consideration. Russia is to 
buy; Germany is to manufacture; France is to 
profit. 

These proposals, which have for some time been 

[179] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

I 

in the air, are now actually in type. Now the type 
is ordinary black—later on it may be red. Twenty 
lives have already been lost over the preliminaries 
of execution. I fear there will be many more as 
the difficulties become more apparent. 

It is not without significance that the terms 
which Germany is to be called upon to accept in 
the event of her submission have never been formu¬ 
lated. No ultimatum was issued before invasion. 
If Germany were to-morrow to throw up her hands 
what conditions would she have to comply with? 
Who can tell? Germany clearly does not know. 
The British government does not know. They were 
never discussed at the Paris conference. M. Poin¬ 
care has only asserted with emphasis that he “will 
not accept promises.” If the Ruhr is to be evacu¬ 
ated promises must be accepted at some stage, for 
Germany cannot deliver ten years’ coal instalments 
in advance, and she cannot pay fifty milliards of 
gold marks over the counter. So, if M. Poincare’s 
statement means anything, then the control of 
Ruhr industries must be vested in France until the 
whole of the mortgage has been redeemed. Hence 
the vast plan for the exploitation of Germany, and 
through Germany of Europe. 

[ 180 ] 


FRENCH SCHEMES 

A pretty scheme, but—like most plans which 
make no allowance for human nature—bound to 
fail. How long would Italy and Russia consent 
to be exploited for the enrichment of French capi¬ 
talists? Italy has already made it clear that she 
has no intention of walking into the trap. Russia 
may or may not have been approached. It is not 
improbable that there have been informal sound¬ 
ings. It is not easy to reckon what the Bolshevists 
may or may not do in any circumstances. But one 
can be fairly assured that they will not place their 
heads in the jaws of a rapacious capitalistic croco¬ 
dile of this character. Brigands are not made of 
that simple stuff. 

Will German statesmen consent to sell their 
country into political and economic bondage for an 
indefinite period? It is incredible. No doubt there 
had been feelers between French and German capi¬ 
talists for some time before the Ruhr invasion. 
M. Loucheur and Herr Stinnes are credited with 
having had conversations on the subject of amal¬ 
gamating the interests of Lorraine iron ore and 
Ruhr coal. But the Ruhr invasion has awakened 
the patriotism of Germany from its stupor. A po¬ 
tent new element has therefore been introduced 

[ 181 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

into the calculation. This element does not mix 
well with international finance. It may be de¬ 
pended upon to resist to the last any effort to put 
German industry under foreign control, and with¬ 
out control the gage is worthless. 

Then there is the German workman who must 
be taken into account. The miner and the engineer 
in all countries are proverbially independent. They 
take no orders even from their own governments. 
During the war they had to be reasoned with before 
they could be persuaded to take a course urged 
upon them by the government of the day in the 
interests of their own country. They will view the 
commands of a syndicate controlled by foreign 
governments with suspicion and repugnance. 
Should disputes arise—and they are more likely 
than ever to arise constantly under these conditions 
—who will be responsible for the protection of life, 
liberty, and property? Will foreign troops oper¬ 
ate? Or will the German army and police act 
practically under orders given from Paris? The 
popular sympathy will be with the strikers. 

It is a fantastic idea born of failure and, there¬ 
fore, bound itself to be a failure. 

London, March 1st, 1923. 

[182] 


XV 


THE QUICKSAND 

When you have walked some distance into a 
quicksand, and are sinking deeper and deeper with 
every step you take, it is always difficult to decide 
whether you are more likely to reach firm ground 
by pressing forward or by going backward. You 
must do one or other. You cannot just stand 
fast, for that is inevitable destruction. The French 
government clearly are of opinion that safety lies 
in marching further into the quagmire. So three 
more German cities have been occupied, more 
burgomasters and officials expelled, more men and 
boys shot in the streets, more black troops im¬ 
ported, more regulations and more decrees issued; 
there are more depressions of French, Belgian and 
Italian exchanges, more confusion in everybody’s 
business in Central Europe—in a sentence, every¬ 
where there is more quaking sand and less solid 
coal. The total shortage in deliveries as compared 
with the promises of Spa was only eight per cent. 

[183] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

Had it not been for this fatuous invasion, France 
during the past six or seven weeks would have al¬ 
ready received from the Ruhr nearly 3,000,000 tons 
in coal and in coke. France has actually received 
50,000 tons during this period. A swarm of engi¬ 
neers, railwaymen, bargemen, officials of all kinds, 
and hotel waiters, supported by a formidable army 
have in six weeks produced this ridiculous output. 
No doubt the amount will later on be increased by 
further pressure and by pouring in more railway- 
men, but it will be a long time ere France receives 
her Spa quota minus eight per cent., and then there 
will be some months’ arrears to make up. 

No wonder that M. Loucheur stated flatly in the 
French Chamber that he did not approve of the 
Ruhr enterprise. He has one distinct advantage 
over the Ruhr plungers—he does know something 
about business. He can boast also of another gift, 
the possession of which is not without significance 
when you consider his present attitude. He is an 
admirable judge of to-morrow’s weather. That is 
a rare endowment amongst politicians. Any sim¬ 
pleton can tell you which way the wind is blowing 
to-day, but it requires a man of special insight and 
experience in these matters to forecast the direction 
[184] 


THE QUICKSAND 

of the wind to-morrow. M. Loucheur is one of 
those exceptionally well-equipped weather proph¬ 
ets. So he satisfies the opinion of to-day by giving 
his support to M. Poincare, and he safeguards his 
position against the morrow’s change by stating 
clearly that he does not approve the policy he sup¬ 
ports. I have read no declaration from any French 
statesman of eminence—with the doubtful excep¬ 
tion of M. Barthou—indicating a belief in the wis¬ 
dom of the venture. And yet French courage, 
French pride, French loyalty, French patriotism— 
and maybe French blood and treasure—are com¬ 
mitted irretrievably to a reckless gamble which 
most of the responsible statesmen who led France 
by their wisdom through her great troubles regard 
with doubt, anxiety and apprehension. 

Will the French government try to extricate 
themselves from the difficulties into which they have 
precipitated their country and Europe? I fear not. 
Heedlessness rushes a man into danger; it needs 
courage to get out. And when getting out involves 
an admission of blame there are few men who pos¬ 
sess that exalted type of courage. There are other 
reasons why the present government of France will 
flounder further into the quicksand. When govern- 

[185] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


merits make mistakes in England, the threat of a 
Parliamentary defeat or a couple of adverse by- 
elections pulls them out roughly but safely, and the 
governments start on a new course amid the gen¬ 
eral satisfaction of friend and foe. The Willesden, 
Mitcham, and Liverpool elections rescued the gov¬ 
ernment from one of the most hopeless muddles 
into which any administration has ever contrived 
to get its affairs. In similar circumstances in 
France a change of government is negotiated with 
amazing dexterity and celerity. But you cannot 
arrange the preliminary overthrow of an existing 
government unless there is some one in the back¬ 
ground ready and willing to form the next. There 
are generally two or three outstanding men of high 
repute prepared to serve their country in any 
emergency. The trouble to-day in France is that 
every alternative leader disapproves of this enter¬ 
prise and believes it' must ultimately fail. On the 
other hand, there is no prominent figure in French 
politics prepared to take upon himself the odium 
of sounding the retreat. It would always be said 
that success was in sight, and that had it not been 
for the new minister’s cowardice and perfidy France 
would have emerged triumphantly out of all her 
[ 186 ] 



THE QUICKSAND 

financial worries. The drapeau would have been 
lowered and betrayed. No French statesmen dare 
face that deadly accusation. So the present French 
government is tied to the saddle of its charger and 
is forced to go on. 

Another explanation of the difficulty of with¬ 
drawing is to be found in the increasing fury of the 
original fomenters of this rashness. The more 
fruitless the enterprise the greater the energy they 
display in spurring the government further into its 
follies. In the previous article I gave a summary 
of the ambitious plans they had conceived for syndi¬ 
cating European resources under French control. 
The industries of Europe controlled from Paris— 
that is their magnificent dream. Now they pro¬ 
pound a new treaty which is to supersede the treaty 
of Versailles. Boundaries are to be revised, rich 
provinces and towns practically annexed, the Ruhr 
coal is to be harnessed to Lorraine coal, and Ger¬ 
many, having been further mutilated and bound, is 
to be reduced to a state of complete economic sub¬ 
jection. There has been nothing comparable to 
these ideas since the Norman conquest, when the 
Saxons, having first of all been disarmed, were re¬ 
duced to a condition of economic thraldom for the 

[187] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


enrichment and glorification of their new masters. 
Needless to say Britain and America are not to be 
invited to attend this new peace conference. They 
are to be graciously informed of the conditions 
of the new peace when finally established by French 
arms. The British Empire, which raised millions 
of men to liberate French soil from the German in¬ 
vaders and which lost hundreds of thousands of its 
best young lives in the effort, is not even to be con¬ 
sulted as to the settlement which its losses alone 
make possible. America, who came to the rescue 
with millions of its bravest, is barely worth a sen¬ 
tence in these ravings of brains intoxicated with an 
unwholesome mixture of hatred, greed and military 
arrogance. The French government are not com¬ 
mitted by any overt declarations to these schemes; 
but it is ominous that they issue from the pens 
whose insistent prodding has driven this govern¬ 
ment on to its present action. Up to the present 
no repudiation has come from the head of the gov¬ 
ernment or from any of his subordinates. The very 
vagueness of his published aims would leave him 
free to adopt any plans. Pledges for reparation 
and security will cover a multitude of aggressions. 

The British government have just issued as a 

[ 188 ] 


THE QUICKSAND 

Parliamentary paper a full report of the proceed¬ 
ings of the Paris conference. It is an amazing doc¬ 
ument. As far as I can see no real endeavour was 
made by any of its members to prevent a break-up. 
At the first failure to secure agreement the dele¬ 
gates threw up their hands in despair and sought 
no alternatives. They agreed about nothing except 
that it was not worth while spending another day 
in trying to agree. Even M. Theunis, the resource¬ 
ful Belgian premier, had nothing to suggest. A 
blight of sterility seems to have swept over the con¬ 
ference. On this aspect of the fateful and fatal con¬ 
ference of Paris I do not now propose to dwell. I 
wish to call attention to it for another purpose. I 
have perused the Blue Book with great care. I was 
anxious to find out exactly what M. Poincare pro¬ 
posed to demand of Germany as a condition of sub¬ 
mission to the French will. What was Germany to 
do if she was anxious to avert the fall of the axe? 
I have read'his speeches and annexes in vain for any 
exposition of these terms. It is true he was never 
asked the question. That sounds incomprehensible. 
But every one engaged was in such a hurry to break 
up the conference and thus put an end to disagree¬ 
able disagreements that it never seems to have oc- 

[189] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


curred to them to ask this essential question. And 
the party principally concerned was not repre¬ 
sented. The result is that no one knows the terms 
upon which the French army is prepared to evacu¬ 
ate the Ruhr. Mr. Bonar Law could not explain 
when questioned in the House of Commons. I am 
not surprised, for no one has ever told him and he 
never asked. I am sure that by this time M. Poin¬ 
care has quite forgotten why he ever went into the 
Ruhr. For that, amongst other reasons, he will re¬ 
main there until something happens that will pro¬ 
vide us with an answer. 

Most human tragedy is fortuitous. 

London , March 10th, 1923. 


[ 190 ] 


XVI 


THE FIRST GERMAN OFFER 

The French and Belgian governments have 
slapped another opportunity in the face. To make 
that slap resound as well as sting, they have ac¬ 
companied their rejection of the German offer by 
a savage sentence of fifteen years’ imprisonment 
on the head of the greatest industrial concern in 
the Ruhr, if not in Europe. What for? Because 
he ordered the works’ syren to sound “cease work” 
for one day when the French troops occupied the 
place. There is a swagger of brutality about that 
sentence which betokens recklessness. It came at 
a moment when the German government had just 
made an offer of peace, and when that ally of 
France who had made the deepest sacrifices in the 
war to save her and Belgium from ruin was urging 
the French government to regard that offer at least 
as a starting-point for discussion. The answer was 
to treat the German note as an offence, to promul¬ 
gate that penal sentence which outrages every sense 

[191] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


of decency throughout the world, and to refuse to 
permit an ally, who had been so faithful in the time 
of trouble for France and Belgium, even the cour¬ 
tesy of a discussion on the tenor of the reply to be 
given to a note that so vitally concerned the interest 
of all the Allies without exception. Prussian arro¬ 
gance in its crudest days can furnish no such ex¬ 
ample of clumsy and short-sighted ineptitude. It 
gives point to Lord Robert Cecil’s observation in 
the House of Commons that it is very difficult to 
reconcile the French attitude with a conception that 
the French government, with the opinion behind it, 
desires a settlement. 

What is the German offer? It proposes to limit 
the total obligations of Germany in cash and in 
kind to thirty milliards of gold marks (£1,500,000,- 
000) to be raised by loans on the international 
money markets at normal conditions in instalments 
of:— 


20 milliards up to July 1, 1927. 

5 milliards up to July 1, 1929. 

5 milliards up to July 1, 1931. 

There are provisions for payment of interest from 
July, 1923, onward, and the agreements entered 
[192] 


THE FIRST GERMAN OFFER 


into for delivery of payments in kind on account 
of reparations are to be carried out in accordance 
with the arrangements already made. Then comes 
this important provision. After a paragraph in 
which it is argued that the above figures would 
strain the resources of Germany to the utmost it 
adds:— 

“Should others not share this opinion, the Ger- 

t 

man government propose to submit the whole repa¬ 
rations problem to an international commission un¬ 
influenced by political considerations, as suggested 
by State Secretary Hughes.” 

They further state that the German government 
are prepared to devise suitable measures in order 
that the whole German national resources should 
participate “in guaranteeing the service of the 
loan.” Guarantees are also offered for deliveries 
in kind. In order to ensure a permanent peace be¬ 
tween France and Germany they propose an agree¬ 
ment that all contentious questions arising between 
them in future should be referred to arbitration. 
The note finally stipulates that the evacuation of 
the Ruhr “within the shortest space of time” and 

[193] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

the restoration of treaty conditions in the Rhine¬ 
land constitute “an essential leading up to negotia¬ 
tions on basis of above ideas.” The above repre¬ 
sents the substance of the German proposals. 

The French and Belgian governments in their 
reply stand by the May, 1921, schedule of pay¬ 
ments and decline to forego even the very proble¬ 
matical “C” bonds of £4,250,000,000. Hitherto 
it has been common ground that £2,500,000,000 
is the figure which Germany can be expected to 
pay. The French and Belgian governments are 
now insisting on the full measure of the £6,600,- 
000,000 award. The Hughes proposal they scoff 
at and treat its putting forward by Germany as 
part of “an expression of a systematic revolt against 
the Treaty of Versailles.” The real temper and 
purpose of this intransigeant attitude is to be found 
in two sentences. Here is the first. Alluding to 
the resistance offered in the Ruhr to the French at¬ 
tempt to exploit its resources the note says: “The 
Belgian and French governments cannot take into 
consideration any German proposal whilst the re¬ 
sistance continues.” That is, however complete and 
satisfactory a proposal may be in itself, it would be 
rejected unless preceded by abject surrender to 
[194] 


THE FIRST GERMAN OFFER 


French designs in the Ruhr. Then later on comes 
this significant sentence emphasising the moral of 
the first:— 

“The Belgian government and the French gov¬ 
ernment have decided that they will only evacuate 
the newly occupied territories according to the 
measure and in proportion to the payments ef¬ 
fected. They have nothing to alter in this reso¬ 
lution.” 

An impossible payment is to be insisted upon— 
costs of occupation are to be added to that, and un¬ 
til both are liquidated French armies are to remain 
in possession of the richest areas in Germany. 
Meanwhile the British Empire and the United 
States of America, who, at a prodigious cost in life 
and treasure, saved France from a similar humilia¬ 
tion to that which she is now inflicting on Germany, 
are practically told when they venture to offer sug¬ 
gestions to mind their own business. No interfer¬ 
ence will be tolerated from meddlers of any sort. 

The sum offered by Germany in settlement of 
reparations is no doubt inadequate. It cannot be 
accepted by any of the Allies in discharge of the 

[195] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


German obligations under the treaty. The Ger¬ 
man government must make a very substantial ad¬ 
vance on that offer before they can hope to come 
to terms with the Allied governments. I have no 
doubt the German government fully realise that 
fact, and I am sure they did not put forward these 
figures as their final tender. They meant them to 
be taken as a beginning and a basis for negotiation. 
In fact they say so. When you enter into negotia¬ 
tions your lawyer, if he knows his business, never 
starts with the figure he is authorised ultimately to 
propose. Nor does the client always communicate 
to his advocate the last figure he would be prepared 
to pay if he had to decide between that and a con¬ 
tinuation of the struggle, with its costs and its com¬ 
plications. Once pourparlers begin the original fig¬ 
ure disappears, and disappears quickly. That is the 
history of all negotiation, private and public. A 
refusal to meet in conference until the figure pro¬ 
posed is acceptable rules out discussion between 
parties as a means of coming to terms on the main 
question in a dispute. 

I have taken part in the settlement of probably 
more industrial differences than most politicians. 
In every case I have started with an impasse . The 
[196] 


THE FIRST GERMAN OFFER 


first meeting of the parties always revealed an ap¬ 
parently unbridgeable chasm between their respec¬ 
tive positions; but perseverance and an honest en¬ 
deavour on both sides to find a solution usually ends 
in agreement. Goodwill can bridge any abyss. 
Unconditional surrender if insisted upon between 
independent bodies is a sure prelude to fresh dis¬ 
putes. The mere fact, therefore, that Germany 
put forward a proposal which falls short of the 
needs and equities of the case is not a sufficient rea¬ 
son for declining to meet her representatives at a 
conference to determine what the right sum should 
be, and the best method of liquidating it. 

But there is another and a stronger reason why 
the German offer should not have been so peremp¬ 
torily rejected. It did not end with a submission 
of an inadequate amount in discharge of repara¬ 
tions claims. Had it done so the French govern¬ 
ment might perhaps contend that Germany must 
make up her mind, before she is allowed to confer, 
to raise that figure to something which at least ap¬ 
proximates to the region of acceptability. But even 
if the French contention in that respect were rea¬ 
sonable, it is ruled out by the circumstance that in 
this note the German government have proposed an 

[197] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


alternative if the figure they offer is considered un¬ 
acceptable. That alternative changes the whole 
character of the note, when you come to judge of 
the question of its bona fides. This proposition con¬ 
sists in the complete and categorical acceptance by 
the German government of Mr. Secretary Hughes’s 
famous New Haven suggestions. It will be 
recollected that, as a way out of the reparations en¬ 
tanglement, he proposed that an international ex¬ 
pert commission should be set up to inquire into the 
question of the amount which Germany is capable 
of paying, and the best method of discharging her 
obligations once they were fixed. Mr. Hughes 
made it clear that the United States of America 
were prepared to assist in such an inquiry. It is 
this that lent such significance and importance to 
his speech. When I first read that speech I thought 
it of such moment that I cabled from Spain to the 
British and American papers my earnest hope that 
the Allies, about to sit in conference in Paris, would 
immediately consider its terms, and act upon it. 
It seemed to me the supreme opportunity for plac¬ 
ing the vexed question which is fretting Europe 
almost into nervous paralysis on a pathway which 
must inevitably lead to a real settlement. The more 
[198] 


THE FIRST GERMAN OFFER 

I think of that proposal, the more am I convinced 
that it was right, and the more am I perplexed by 
the rude indifference with which it was treated by 
the Allied governments. To this hour I am baffled 
to explain why those who are anxious for a conclu¬ 
sion never brought this momentous declaration of 
American readiness to take a hand to the notice of 
the conference. I can suggest explanations, but 
none which is not a grave reflection on the way in 
which the proceedings of that conference were han¬ 
dled. I can understand those who wish to exploit 
reparations for ulterior purposes being anxious to 
keep America out of the business. But why did 
Britain, Italy and Belgium neglect this chance of 
securing the association of the one power which 
could be helpful to the Allies in reaching a fair and 
sound decision, and what is equally important, help¬ 
ful in all subsequent operations for cashing that 
decision? Now Germany states categorically that, 
if her cash tender is unacceptable to the Allies, she 
is willing to leave the question of the amount she is 
capable of paying to an international tribunal on 
which America is represented, and to abide by the 
decision of that tribunal, whatever it may be. That 
is in substance Mr. Secretary Hughes’s suggestion. 

[199] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


How can a note containing so reasonable a pro¬ 
posal, and a proposal originally emanating from so 
powerful and so friendly a quarter, be treated as if 
it were an insult to the dignity of France—and of 
Belgium! To declare—as the French note does— 
that the Hughes proposition is an abrogation of 
the Treaty of Versailles is to ignore the provisions 
of that treaty. As a matter of fact it would be a 
restoration of the treaty. As I have repeatedly 
pointed out, that treaty delegated the question of 
the amount which Germany has to pay in respect 
of reparations to an Allied commission on which 
the United States of America was to be repre¬ 
sented. The function of this commission was to 
assess the amount of the damages for which Ger¬ 
many is responsible under the treaty, and then to 
adjudicate on the capacity of Germany to pay those 
damages in whole or in part. 

The commission was authorised to fix the amount 
of the annual payments to be demanded of Ger¬ 
many on the double basis of liability and capacity. 
The withdrawal of the only country which had no 
direct interest in reparations from the treaty left 
the commission a lop-sided and highly prejudiced 
tribunal. The reparations commission no longer 
[ 200 ] 




THE FIRST GERMAN OFFER 

carries out the treaty idea. Its character has com¬ 
pletely changed. It is essential in order to adhere 
to the Treaty of Versailles that America should 
have a representative on the tribunal that fixes the 
payments to be exacted from Germany. The Ger¬ 
man government now offer to submit the fate of 
their country to the unaltered clauses of the treaty 
which was signed in the Galerie des Glaces in June, 
1919. France and Belgium have no right in honour 
to demand submission to any other. Because they 
insist on enforcing something which is entirely dif¬ 
ferent from the contract entered into by them with 
Germany in 1919, Europe is disquieted and inter¬ 
national relations are saturated with the inflam¬ 
mable spirit of resentment, hatred, and revenge. 
No wonder Marshal Foch is touring Central Eu¬ 
rope to put the Allied armies in order! He seems 
to me to be the one man in France who has an un¬ 
derstanding of what all this is leading up to. 
London, May 14th, 1923. 


[ 201 ] 


XVII 


THE SECOND GERMAN NOTE 

The Germans have tried another note. Inasmuch 
as all the Allied press without exception are agreed 
in describing it as a great improvement over the 
first, it is hardly worth while taking up time and 
space to demonstrate how the essentials of this more 
favoured document were contained in its reprobated 
predecessor. Psychologically it is a decided ad¬ 
vance on the first note. It is crisp and condensed, 
and does not indulge in the irritating processes of 
an argument. You should never attempt to argue 
with an angry man who is brandishing a bludgeon 
—unless you are at a safe distance from him. Ger¬ 
many is in this case at his feet. The second Ger¬ 
man note therefore is wise in avoiding the provoca¬ 
tion of an appeal to reason. It makes its offer sim¬ 
ply and uncontentiously. 

It also suggests a number of substantial guar¬ 
antees for the payment of interest on the loans to 
be raised for reparations purposes. I cannot pre- 
[ 202 ] 



THE SECOND GERMAN NOTE 

tend to assess the value that would be attached to 
these gages by prospective borrowers. I have no 
doubt they would add materially to the security of 
the investment. But this array of securities stand¬ 
ing alone will not entice the investor to risk his 
money on a German reparations loan. He will look 
at Germany as a whole, and not in parts. He will 
want to know what is likely to happen to that great 
country during the coming years, and to its indus¬ 
try, its finance, its politics, and its people. A rail¬ 
way which collects its rates and fares in a corrupt 
currency is of no use as a security for any loan—a 
customs revenue collected in a fugitive coin is 
equally worthless. The only reliable basis for a 
loan is a stable Germany. You can have no stable 
Germany until you settle reparations. That is, 
therefore, the first essential preliminary to all dis¬ 
cussions on gages be they productifs or otherwise. 

Hence the propositions that really matter in the 
German note are not those which give a schedule 
of guarantees, but those which bear on the fixation 
of the amount which Germany is to be called upon 
to pay. On this question the note does not increase 
the sum which the first note estimated as the limit 
of German capacity. But it reaffirms the readiness 

[203] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

of the German government to submit the considera¬ 
tion of the capacity of Germany to pay to an im¬ 
partial tribunal. It offers to place at the disposal 
of this body all the material which is necessary to 
enable it to arrive at a just conclusion. It pro¬ 
ceeds to suggest that all further discussion on the 
subjects at issue between the parties should take 
place at a conference rather than by interchange 
of notes. How can any unprejudiced person re¬ 
fuse to recognise the essential reasonableness of this 
part of the offer? It is common ground that the 
annuities imposed upon Germany in May, 1921, de¬ 
mand modification. Even M. Poincare proceeds 
on that assumption. There is, therefore, a most 
important and highly difficult figure to be ascer¬ 
tained. What annuity can Germany pay? And 
when will she be in a position to pay? Is it unrea¬ 
sonable to propose that this question which involves 
a most searching examination into German assets 
should be referred to a tribunal which would be 
capable of giving it calm and judicial considera¬ 
tion? And what objection can there be to discus¬ 
sing the matter at a conference where Germany as 
well as all the Allies would be represented? If 
this were a business or a trade dispute these two pro- 
[204] 


THE SECOND GERMAN NOTE 


posals would be regarded as eminently sensible and 
fair, and the party that rejected them would be con¬ 
demned by public opinion. 

What are the objections to acceptance formu¬ 
lated by the French press? Up to the date of writ¬ 
ing this article the French government have not 
officially expressed their views on the German note. 
But one may safely assume from past expe¬ 
rience that Parisian journalists consulted the Quai 
d’Orsay before writing their critical articles. 

The first is that the French government will dis¬ 
cuss no proposals emanating from Germany until 
the latter withdraw its passive resistance to French 
and Belgian exploitation of the Ruhr. What does 
this exactly mean? If it imports—as a preliminary 
condition to conference or consideration of terms— 
an acquiescence by Germany in the occupation and 
exploitation by France and Belgium of the Ruhr 
valley until reparations be fully paid, then the posi¬ 
tion is hopeless. A German government may sub¬ 
mit to such an occupation because it has no force at 
its command to offer resistance. But no German 
government can give assent to such,an invasion of 
its territories. A peace signed on such terms would 
inevitably be repudiated at* the first favourable op- 

[205] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

portunity. Meanwhile there would be constant fric¬ 
tion and trouble in the Ruhr. I can hardly believe 
that this is what the French government mean to 
insist upon, in spite of an article in the Temps 
which bears that interpretation. But they may only 
ask that whilst terms are being discussed an armi¬ 
stice shall be concluded, the first condition of which 
will be that all obstacles now interposed in the way 
of supplying France, Belgium, and Italy with repa¬ 
ration coal and coke shall be withdrawn. An armi¬ 
stice on those terms ought not to be difficult to ar¬ 
range, especially if the French and Belgian author¬ 
ities withdraw the ban they have placed on the ex¬ 
port of Ruhr products to the unoccupied parts of 
Germany. Unless the terms are mutually accom¬ 
modating, I surmise that the German government 
will experience an insurmountable difficulty in per¬ 
suading the stubborn miners and railway operatives 
of the Ruhr to assist in furnishing to France the 
products of their labour which are denied to their 
own fellow-countrymen. It is too readily taken for 
granted that the Ruhr workmen will obey any be¬ 
hest that comes from Berlin. Governments in Ger¬ 
many have ceased to receive that kind of obedience. 
It is one of the indirect consequences of the great 
[ 206 ] 


THE SECOND GERMAN NOTE 

disaster that the decrees of Wilhelmstrasse no 
longer command the respect which attached to them 
in pre-war days. Still, a conference at which all 
the interests concerned were represented would ex¬ 
perience no difficulty in fixing up stipulations which 
would make it possible for France to enter a con¬ 
ference on reparations without any suspicion being 
attached to her ministers that they had lowered the 
national flag on entering the room. I trust that 
good sense will prevail over temper and exag¬ 
gerated pride—on both sides. 

Should this preliminary point of honour be dis¬ 
posed of, then what remains? The fixation of the 
annuities and the guarantees for their payment. 
What are the objections to accepting the method 
put forward in the German note for these two 
points? It is not the German method—it is the 
American method adopted by the German govern¬ 
ment. A conference with an impartial tribunal if 
conference fails. I know of no other way except a 
resort to blind force. 

It is objected that the Treaty of Versailles has 
already provided such a tribunal in the reparations 
commission for the specific purpose of adjudicating 
upon Germany’s liability and Germany’s capacity, 

[207] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


and that to set up another for exactly the same 
purpose would be to supersede that treaty. There 
are two answers to this contention. The first is 
that the reparations commission as at present con¬ 
stituted is not the body to which Germany agreed 
to refer these questions so vital to her existence. 
It is not the body which Britain and the other Allies 
contemplated. The withdrawal of America from 
the commission—after Germany had already signed 
the treaty—has completely changed the balance and 
therefore the character of this tribunal. No man in 
his senses can pretend that in its mutilated form it 
is either impartial in its composition or judicial 
in its methods. M. Poincare does not conceal the 
fact that the French government issues orders to its 
representative on that “judicial” body. The chair¬ 
man is an eminent French deputy who has played 
and still plays a conspicuous and influential part in 
French politics, and is looking forward to pursuing 
his career as a politician whithersoever it may lead. 
Ever since he has been chairman he has delivered 
speeches in public denouncing the party of whose 
case he is supposed to be the chief judge. All his 
colleagues represent powers who have a direct pe¬ 
cuniary interest in the result of their decisions. The 
[ 208 ] 


THE SECOND GERMAN NOTE 


only disinterested power has retired from the com¬ 
mission. The American proposal is very moderate. 
It implies the restoration of the treaty by reintro¬ 
ducing America to the body that settles reparations. 
If France objects to the appointment of a separate 
commission why should it not be agreed between the 
Allies that their representatives on the body of ex¬ 
perts to be set up shall be the men who now con¬ 
stitute the reparations commission? To these the 
American government could add their nominee. 
Germany has a right under the treaty to present 
her case. The whole question of capacity could 
then be gone into in the light of the experience ac¬ 
quired during the last four years, and a settlement 
could thus be effected on a sound basis. Such set¬ 
tlement would have a much better chance of being 
workable, and therefore more durable than terms 
imposed by force on a people who only accept under 
duress. 

But whatever the French view may be of the 
suggested annuities or guarantees, or of the im¬ 
partial commission, it is inconceivable that they 
should reject the conference. It is the surest road 
to reparations. At Spa the method of pelting the 
bewildered Reich with demand notes was for a 

[209] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

time abandoned, and that of conference at the same 
table was substituted. The results were admirable. 
The process of disarmament made immediate 
strides towards satisfactory completion, and the 
coal deliveries became fuller and steadier. At 
Cannes last year the Allies once more started to 
confer with German ministers. All those who were 
present at those discussions—without exception— 
admit that satisfactory progress was being made 
towards a comprehensive settlement when the con¬ 
ferees were scattered by a bomb. It is too early 
yet to estimate the loss which inured to Europe 
through that explosion. But all idea of discussion 
between the parties has since been loftily and petu¬ 
lantly dismissed as an exhibition of pernicious weak¬ 
ness. What has been substituted for it? For 
twelve months we had rather a ridiculous display of 
feather-rustling about the farmyard to inspire ter¬ 
ror. Threatening speeches full of ominous hints 
of impending action were delivered at intervals in 
different parts of France. These produced nothing 
but increased confusion and incapacity to pay. 
Every speech cost France milliards in postponed 
reparations. French opinion not unnaturally in¬ 
sisted on some action being taken. Hence this rash 
[ 210 ] 


THE SECOND GERMAN NOTE 

invasion. At Cannes a two-year moratorium would 
have been accepted as a settlement. Already a 
year and a half of that period would by now have 
elapsed. German finances would, under the strict 
Allied supervision which was conceded, by now 
have been restored to soundness—the mark would 
have been stabilised, and a loan could have been 
negotiated which would have provided the Allies 
with substantial sums towards lightening the bur¬ 
dens they are all bearing. Confidence would have 
been restored in Europe, and for the first time there 
would have been real peace. One can see what the 
alternative has produced. Whatever the final terms 
may be, Germany is not in a financial position to 
pay what she was able to offer then. These eigh¬ 
teen months have been devoted to reducing assidu¬ 
ously German capacity to pay Allied debts, and the 
value of the German security for such payment. 
At Cannes the mark stood at 770 to the pound ster¬ 
ling. It now stands at 500,000. Germany will 
need an extended moratorium to recover from the 
clumsy mishandling of the past year and a half. 
The mark has to be picked up out of the abyss into 
which it has been thrown by those whose interest 
it was to lift it out of the depression wherein it lay. 

[ 211 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


A debtor on whose restored health and nerve pay¬ 
ment entirely depends has been violently pushed 
down several flights of stairs. It will take him a 
long time to recover from the bruises, the shake, 
and the loss of blood. What an achievement in 
scientific debt collecting! If reparations are ever 
to be paid the Allies must retrace their steps and 
get back to conference. Once the parties—all the 
parties—sit round the table I feel assured that the 
common sense of most will in the end prevail. We 
shall never get back what has been lost during 
1922-23, but we shall get something that will help. 
It will take some time to set up the tackle for hoist¬ 
ing the mark out of the crevass and some to do the 
winding. But the sooner a start is made the less 
winding there will be to do. So for everybody’s 
sake it is high time to stop the strutting and get 
back to business. 


[212] 


XVIII 


THE NAPOLEONIC DREAM 

What a muddle it all is! France and Germany 
are both anxious to settle in the Ruhr, but are too 
proud to admit it. The struggle, therefore, goes 
on, and will continue to the detriment of both. 
Belgium is sorry she ever entered the Ruhr, but 
cannot get out of it. Every time she tries to get 
away France pulls her back roughly by the tail of 
her coat, so she has to do sentry-go at Essen whilst 
her franc is leading a wild life at home. Italy has 
forgotten that she ever sanctioned the occupation, 
and her moral indignation is mounting rapidly, al¬ 
though it has not yet risen to a height which is visi¬ 
ble across the Alps. Great Britain is growling fu¬ 
tile notes of dissatisfaction with everybody—France 
and Germany alike. The confusion of tongues is 
deafening and paralysing, and no one is quite 
happy except the spirit of mischief who is holding 
his sides with ghoulish laughter. He never had such 

[213] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

a time—not since the Tower of Babel. And this 
time it may end in a second deluge. 

The horror of the Great War seems to have un¬ 
hinged the European mind. Nations do not think 
normally. The blood pressure is still very high. 
The excitement over the Ruhr does not tend to 
improve it. When some of the articles written and 
speeches delivered to-day come to be read by the 
diligent historian a generation hence, he will recog¬ 
nise there the ravings of a continent whose mental 
equilibrimn has been upset by a great shock. The 
real issue involved in all this struggle is a compara¬ 
tively simple one. How much can Germany pay 
and in what way can she pay? America, Britain, 
Italy and Germany are all agreed that the only 
way to settle that question is to appoint competent 
experts to investigate and report upon it. The 
Pope also has blessed this reasonable suggestion. 
France, on the contrary, says it is a question to be 
determined by guns and generals—both equally 
well fitted for that task. Germany must present 
her accounts to the mitrailleuse and argue her 
case before the soixante-quinze. It is a mad 
world. 

Every one is interested in one question—or per- 
[214] 



THE NAPOLEONIC DREAM 


haps two. How will it all end and how soon is that 
end coming? Although I have nothing to fear from 
recalling the predictions of my early articles on 
this subject, I hesitate to hazard a fresh forecast. 
But one may review the possibilities and note the 
drift of the whirling currents. In assessing the 
chances, you must begin with some knowledge of 
the man who will decide the event. M. Poincare is 
possessed of undoubted ability and patriotism, but 
he is also a man who lives in a world of prejudices 
so dense that they obscure facts. You have but to 
turn to one statement in his last note where he says 
the conferences and ultimatums of the past four 
years secured nothing from Germany. What are 
the facts? During the three and a half years that 
preceded the Ruhr invasion, Germany paid to the 
Allies in cash and in kind over ten milliards of gold 
marks,—£500,000,000 in sterling, 2,000,000,000 in 
dollars—a considerable effort for a country which 
had but lately emerged out of the most exhausting 
of wars and whose foreign trade was down sixty 
to seventy per cent. You might imagine that a man 
who had taken the grave step of ordering armies to 
invade a neighbour’s territories would also have 
taken the trouble to ascertain the elementary facts 

[215] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


of his case. Part of this gigantic sum went to pay 
for Armies of Occupation; part for Reparations, 
but it all came out of German assets. Will the next 
three and a half years bring anything approxi¬ 
mating that figure to the Allied coffers? 

It is a safe statement to make that no one in 
charge of the French movements anticipated a re¬ 
sistance approaching in its stubbornness to that 
which they have encountered. The friendly Press, 
both in France and in England, foretold a speedy 
collapse of the German opposition, and on this as¬ 
sumption all the French plans were based. During 
the first days of the occupation an Englishman 
asked a French officer how long he thought it would 
take. The answer is indicative of the spirit in which 
the venture started: “Optimists think it will take a 
fortnight,” he said; “pessimists think it may take 
three weeks.” A reference to the January tele¬ 
grams from Paris and Diisseldorf will show that 
this officer accurately expressed the general senti¬ 
ment of those who were responsible for the Ruhr 
invasion. Soldiers estimate the chances of resist¬ 
ance in terms of material and trained men, and 
statesmen too often build their hopes on the same 
shallow foundation. They never allow for the in- 
[ 216 ] 


THE NAPOLEONIC DREAM 


domitable reserves of the human heart, which do 
not figure in Army Lists or Statesmen’s Annuals. 
The resistance of Paris in 1870 was as confounding 
to Bismarck as the stubbornness of the Ruhr miners 
is to Poincare to-day. The last regular army had 
been destroyed, all docketed food stores exhausted, 
and still the struggle of the devoted citizens went on 
for months. There were few men in England who 
thought the Boer peasants could continue their re¬ 
sistance for more than three months after our armies 
reached South Africa. The three months ran into 
three years and only then capitulated on honourable 
terms. The Northern States of America never con¬ 
templated the possibility of a five years’ struggle 
with a blockaded, starved and overwhelmed Con¬ 
federacy. The War of 1914-18 is littered with mis¬ 
calculations attributable to the blind refusal of 
rulers and their advisers to recognise the moral ele¬ 
ment as a factor in the reckoning. The Ruhr 
tragedy is not the first, nor indeed may it be the last, 
to be initiated by facile memoranda framed by Gen¬ 
eral Staffs and civilian functionaries, drawing their 
inspiration from pigeonholes. 

Whatever may transpire in the Ruhr it is already 
clear that the estimates of military men, of trans- 

[217] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

port officials, of intelligence departments, and of 
presiding Ministers, have been hopelessly falsified. 
Many more soldiers have been sent into the Ruhr 
than had been thought necessary: a great deal less 
coal has come out of the Ruhr than had been con¬ 
fidently expected. There are already as many 
Frenchmen in the Ruhr as Napoleon commanded 
at Waterloo; and they have succeeded in sending 
across the frontier in six months only as much coal 
as the Germans delivered in one month during the 
period of “default” which provoked the invasion. 
Desperate efforts have been made at great cost to 
increase the yield with a view to satisfying French 
and foreign opinion that resistance is gradually 
breaking down. Rubbish is shovelled into wagons 
in order anyhow to swell the quota. Coal is seized 
anywhere, even in the streets. And Monsieur Troc- 
quer, the bluff and genial Breton in charge of the 
transport arrangements, breezily challenges all the 
critics to look at the mounting pyramids of his dust¬ 
cart collection and rejoice with him in the triumph 
of French organisation under his control. Alas, the 
Celtic fire of Monsieur Trocquer, even when fed by 
the sweepings of the Ruhr, cannot keep going the 
blast furnaces of Lorraine! So we find disappoint- 
[ 218 ] 


THE NAPOLEONIC DREAM 


ment and discontent amongst the forge-masters of 
France. 

But there is a limit to human endurance. Either 
France or Germany must give way in the end. 
Which will it be, and when will it come—and how? 
In answering these questions one must remember 
that for France the honour of her flag is involved in 
success. Failure would irretrievably damage her 
prestige. Every Frenchman knows that. That is 
why French statesmen who disapprove of the inva¬ 
sion support the Government in all their proposals 
for bringing it to a successful end. And here 
France has a legitimate complaint against her 
Allies. It is useless for Italy now to counsel wis¬ 
dom. Signor Mussolini was present at the “hush 
Conference” which sanctioned the invasion. He 
fixed the price of assent in coal tonnage. That price 
has been regularly paid. Belgium is now becoming 
scared at the swelling magnitude of the venture. 
But she committed her own honour as well as that 
of France to carrying it through. I regret to think 
that Britain is not free from responsibility in the 
matter. It is true that her representatives disap¬ 
proved of the enterprise, but not on grounds of 
right or justice. On the contrary, whilst express- 

[ 219 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


ing grave doubt as to the ultimate success of the in¬ 
vasion they wished the French Government well in 
the undertaking on which they were about to em¬ 
bark. Not one of the Allies is in a position with a 
clean conscience to urge France to haul down her 
flag. There is only one course which could be urged 
on the French Government as being consistent with 
French honour, and that is the reference of the dis¬ 
pute to the League of Nations. Such a reference 

v 

would be an enforcement of the Treaty of Ver¬ 
sailles. That suggestion the British Government 
have refused to press on France. The struggle 
must, therefore, proceed to its destined end. 

It may be assumed that the British Government 
will not intervene effectively. How about the 
ministerial declarations ? Surely these strong words 
must be followed by strong action! Those who 
rely on that inference know nothing of the men 
who use the words or of the forces upon which they 
depend for their ministerial existence. It is true 
that some weeks ago Mr. Snodgrass took off his 
coat and proclaimed cryptically, but fearlessly, that 
unless peace was restored on his terms something 
would happen. The French Government, unper¬ 
turbed, replied that they meant to persist in their 
[ 220 ] 


THE NAPOLEONIC DREAM 

course. So last week Mr. Snodgrass takes off his 
waistcoat. Rut do not be alarmed: there will be no 
blows: bis friends will hold him back. Meanwhile, 
Mr. Winkle has left for Paris in order to lunch 
with one of the combatants. Next week he will be 
followed by Mr. Pickwick, who will call on another, 
and the week after Mr. Tupman proposes to pay 
another propitiatory visit. It will be an incalculable 
advantage to M. Poincare that they each represent 
a different and conflicting point of view. The 
French have accurately taken the measure of the 
mind and muscle of those who indulge in these spec¬ 
tacular exhibitions of ball punching in Westminster 
with cakes and ale at Rambouillet. We may there¬ 
fore assume that whatever conversations take place 
at these general gatherings or ensue from them, the 
French will not be talked out of the Ruhr. 

From the emphatic declarations made by the 
head of the French Government it is gathered that 
France will insist at all costs on enforcing her will. 
She has put forward two demands. The first is that 
Germany shall abandon passive resistance as an es¬ 
sential preliminary to negotiation. The second is 
that her forces should remain in the Ruhr until the 
last payment is made. Will the German Govern- 

[ 221 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


ment accept these conditions? A settlement on 
these terms is only possible on two assumptions. 
The first is that a German Government can be 
found strong enough to accept them and to survive 
their acceptance. The second is that there is a 
French Government wise enough to give a liberal 

t 

interpretation to these demands. The first depends 
to a large extent on the second. 

The events of the past few months have added 
immeasurably to the difficulties of negotiation. In¬ 
cidents inseparable from a foreign occupation in 
any land have exasperated German opinion and 
reached depths of hatred which had never been 
stirred even by the Great War—the deportation of 
75,000 Germans from their homes in the Ruhr area, 
the repression, the shooting, the starving, the hold¬ 
ing up of food trains until essential supplies rot. 
The myriad insolences of unchallengeable force, 
the passions which make French policy so intract¬ 
able are entirely attributable to the German occu¬ 
pation of France. Frenchmen are now sowing the 
same seeds of anger in the German breast. Hatreds 
are bad negotiators. That is why I despair of a real 
settlement. 

But Germany may collapse. She might even 

[ 222 ] 


THE NAPOLEONIC DREAM 

break up, temporarily. The authority of the Cen¬ 
tral Government has already largely disappeared. 
There is practically no collection of taxes. The 
mark has gone down in a little over a week from 
1,000,000 to the £ to 27,000,000/ How can any 
Government collect taxes in such a fugitive and 
attenuated currency? You might as well try to 
collect land taxes on the tail of a comet. The state 
of the currency is but a symptom of the general dis¬ 
integration. Berlin has ceased to wield any influ¬ 
ence in Bavaria, and the Monarchy might be re¬ 
stored in that Province at no distant date. There 
is a movement in the Rhineland to set up a Repub¬ 
lic freed from the dominion of Prussia. This move¬ 
ment is fostered by French agencies and financed 
by French subventions. If it is declared Prussia 
will not be allowed to suppress it. We may, there¬ 
fore, soon witness a Rhineland Republic whose 
glorious freedom and independence will be jeal¬ 
ously guarded against internal as well as external 
foes by the coloured warriors of Senegal and 
Cochin-China. Saxony might be captured by Com¬ 
munists and Prussia be torn between Monarchist 
and Communist. These are not unlikely happen- 

1 Since this was written the mark has fallen far beyond. 

[223] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


ings. Is it too much to say they are not altogether 
out of the computation of French statesmanship? 
If Germany dissolves, then the Rhineland and the 
Ruhr would remain under the dominion of France. 
France would not secure reparations, but she would 
enjoy security, and she would, so it is conjectured, 
enormously enhance her power in the world. An 
old French dream would be realised. The work of 
Bismarck would be undone and the achievement of 
Napoleon would be restored and perpetuated. 
There is an old Welsh adage which says that it is 
easy to kindle a fire on an old hearthstone. This 
idea of a Rhineland under French domination is the 
old hearthstone of Charlemagne. Mazarin sought 
to relight its flames. Napoleon the First kindled 
on it a blaze that scorched Europe. Napoleon the 
Third had hopes of warming his chilling fortunes at 
the glow of its embers, and now the great victory of 
1918 has set French ambitions once more reviving 
the fires on the old hearthstone of a Rhineland ruled 
by the Frank. 

Altogether it is a bad look-out for Europe. 
London , August 6th, 1923. 


[ 224 ] 


XIX 


IS IT PEACE? 

The Charleville speech 1 and M. Poincare’s reply 
to Lord Curzon’s despatch 2 leave things exactly 
where they were. Rumour said the reply would 
be long and logical. For once rumour hath not lied. 
M. Poincare regards this exchange of bolstered 
notes as a pillow fight which he is quite prepared to 
prolong in order to gain time whilst the real strug¬ 
gle is developing to its destined end. The promi¬ 
nence given in the press to the fact that this rigid 
reply is “courteous” is significant of the pitiable 
condition to which the Entente has been brought by 
these maladroit negotiations. 

What will Mr. Stanley Baldwin and Lord 
Curzon do next? Much depends for Europe on 
that next step, and something for them also hangs 
upon their action or inaction. One is reminded of 


1 M. Poincare’s speech at Charleville on August 19th, on the sub¬ 
ject of French policy in the Ruhr. 

2 The British note was sent to France, August 13th, 1923, and 
M. Poincare’s reply was received on August 23rd. 

[ 225 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

r 

the answer given by Emile Ollivier to the question 
addressed to him as to his opinion of one of Napo¬ 
leon the Third’s experiments in constitutional gov¬ 
ernment: “Si c’est une fin, vous etes perdu; si c’est 
un commencement, vous etes fonde.” That sage 
comment is equally applicable to the Curzon note. 

We can only “wait and see,” first for the French 
official reply, and second for the decision of the 
British Government upon that note. The only new 
factor in the situation that may have a determining 
influence on events is the accession of Herr Strese- 
mann to the German Chancellorship . 1 I know 
nothing of him beyond newspaper report, but he is 
generally supposed to be a man of energy, courage 
and resource. If that be true, his appointment to 
the official leadership of the German people may be 
an event of the first magnitude. We shall soon 
know what he is made of. Germany has suffered 
more from weak or misguided leadership in recent 
years than any great country in the world. It 
blundered her into the War, it blundered through 
the War, it blundered into the armistice, it blun- 


i The German Government fell on August 13th, 1923, and Herr 
Stresemann succeeded Dr. Cuno as Chancellor. 

[ 226 ] 


IS IT PEACE? 

dered during the peace negotiations, and it has blun¬ 
dered her affairs badly after the peace. But no 
one can predict what Germany is capable of with a 
wise and strong leadership. Herr Stresemann has 
a responsibility cast upon him and an opportunity 
afforded him such as have not been given to any 
statesman since the days of Stein and his coadjutors 
for regenerating his country and lifting her out of 
the slough of despond in which she has been sink¬ 
ing deeper and deeper. Those who ignore the ef¬ 
fect which powerful and magnetic personalities may 
have upon the fortunes of nations in despair must 
have forgotten their history books. The fall of 
Dr. Cuno and the rise of Herr Stresemann may 
well turn out to be a more decisive event than the 
despatch or the publication of the Curzon note. 
But if he lacks those rare qualities which alone can 
inspire a people in an emergency to heroic action 
and endurance, then there is nothing but chaos 
ahead of Germany. For the moment it is more im¬ 
portant to keep a discerning eye on Herr Strese¬ 
mann than to watch this endless fencing between 
Downing Street and the Quai d’Orsay. 

It is not often I find myself in agreement with 

[227] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


M. Poincare, but when he states that British un¬ 
employment is not attributable to the occupation of 
the Ruhr I am substantially in accord with him. 
In July last 1 1 called the attention of the House of 
Commons to world conditions which injuriously af¬ 
fected our export trade and made unemployment 
on a large scale inevitable in the British labour 
market for some time to come. We are more de¬ 
pendent on our overseas trade, export, entrepot, 
shipping and incidental business than any country 
in the world. Almost half our industrial and com¬ 
mercial activities are associated with outside trade 
in all its forms. That is not a full statement of the 
case, for if this important section of our business 
were to languish, the home trade would also neces¬ 
sarily suffer by the consequential diminution in the 
purchasing capacity of our people. Before the 
French ever entered the Ruhr our overseas trade 
was down to 75 per cent, of its pre-war level. Our 
population has increased by two millions since 
1913; our taxation has increased fourfold; our na¬ 
tional debt tenfold; but our business is down 25 per 
cent. To what is this fall in our outside sales and 
services attributable? It is the direct consequence 

i House of Commons, July 16th, 1923. 

[ 228 ] 


% 


IS IT PEACE? 


of the War. Our customers throughout Europe 
are impoverished. What is just as bad, our cus¬ 
tomers’ customers are impoverished. So that 
neither can buy at our stalls the quantities or the 
qualities which they could be relied upon to pur¬ 
chase before the War. Until Europe can buy, 
Australia, Canada, India and China cannot pay, 
as the Prime Minister pointed out in his last speech 
in the House of Commons. Germany, before the 
War, bought Australian wool, Canadian grain, In¬ 
dian jute and tea, and the proceeds as often as not 
went to pay for goods bought by those countries in 
British markets. The same observation applies to 
Russia, Austria, and the Levantine countries. The 
purchasing capacity of Europe must, therefore, he 
replenished, a process which will, at best, take years 
of patient industry. The mischief of the Ruhr lies 
not in the creation of bad trade, but in retarding the 
process of recovery. It has undoubtedly had that 
effect. 

Before the French entered the Ruhr trade was 
gradually if slowly improving all round. The 
prices of 1922 were lower than those of 1921; there¬ 
fore, the contrast in sterling was not as apparent 
as it became on the examination of weights and 

[229] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


measures. The export figures, notably in manu¬ 
factured goods, show a decided increase on those of 
the preceding year. This advance is reflected in the 
statistics of unemployment. During the first ten 
months of 1922 there was a reduction of over 
500,000 in the numbers of the registered unem¬ 
ployed. The succeeding ten months give only a 
slight improvement. Something has happened to 
arrest the rate of progress towards better times. 
This is where the Ruhr comes in. Even if it is not, 
to quote the Prime Minister, a penknife stuck in 
the watch and stopping the works, it is certainly 
more than a grain of dust which has perceptibly 
slowed the action of the sensitive machinery of 
trade. 

The effect of the Ruhr disturbance would con¬ 
tinue for some time if the penknife were removed 
now. For the moment M. Poincare is wedging it 
in more deeply and firmly. Even if he withdrew 
it now, the works would not recover their normal 
steadiness for a long while. During these last dis¬ 
turbing months Germany has become appreciably 
poorer. Her wealth production has been depressed 
throughout most of her industrial areas. To a cer¬ 
tain extent Lorraine and Belgium have also been 
[230] 


IS IT PEACE? 

affected adversely. The reservoir of wealth upon 
which industry draws has not been filling up as it 
ought if the world is ever to recover. 

These things are hidden from France. She is a 
more self-contained country than Britain—perhaps 
also a more self-centred country. Even after the 
Napoleonic wars, which drained her best manhood 
and exhausted her fine nervous virility, she suffered 
from no interval of economic depression. Her 
great and victorious rival across the Channel lum¬ 
bered painfully through fifteen years of misery, 
poverty and distress. Her own population, basking 
in the sunshine of prosperity, regarded across the 
narrow waters, with a natural contentment, the 
dark fogs that enveloped and drenched their old 
enemies. Commiseration or sympathy from them at 
that time was not to be expected. We had fought 
them for twenty years with an inveterate pertinacity 
and at last beaten them to the ground and occupied 
their capital. To-day we suffer because we helped 
to save their capital from foreign occupation and 
their country from being humbled to the dust by a 
foreign foe. Neither in French speeches, notes, 
nor articles is there any appreciation shown of that 
cardinal fact in the situation. 


[ 231 ] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

All that is clear at the moment is the stubborn¬ 
ness of the French attitude. M. Poincare has not 
so far receded one millimetre from his original posi¬ 
tion. Threats and cajoleries alike are answered by 
a repetition of the same formulas, with the slight 
variations in word or phrase which one would ex¬ 
pect from a practised writer. But the theme is al¬ 
ways the same and the application is identical to 
the point of monotony. He is not winning much 
coal out of his discourses and literary exercises, 
but to do him justice he is getting something for 
his country. Last year Lord Balfour, in the note 
he sent to the Allies on behalf of the British Gov¬ 
ernment, offered to forego all claims for debts and 
reparations if Britain were secured against pay¬ 
ment of the American debt. That meant a surren¬ 
der of claims aggregating over £3,000,000,000 in 
return for an assured £1,000,000,000. A very 
handsome and generous offer. The Curzon note 
proposes to surrender all our claims for a precarious 
return of £710,000,000. The Ruhr occupation has 
already brought down the British claim against the 
Allies by £290,000,000. M. Poincare may not be 
able to extract reparations out of Germany, but in 
seven months he has succeeded in forcing £290,- 
[232] 


IS IT PEACE? 


000,000 out of Great Britain. He will certainly 
ask for more—and probably receive it. 

Mr. Bonar Law was right when he said that 
under certain conditions Great Britain would be 
the only country to pay a war indemnity. Those 
conditions have arisen under his successors. 
Cricciethj August 20th, 1923. 


[ 233 ] 



XX 


WHAT NEXT? 1 

The pen-and-ink joust is suspended for a fort¬ 
night, whilst the figures of British unemployment 
are leaping upwards. When the exhausted British 
knights have been reinvigorated by French waters 
they will once more charge full tilt at the French 
champion—at least, they will have made up their 
minds by then whether they will shiver another 
fountain-pen against his blotting-pad. 

This is the advice ponderously and pompously 
tendered them in inspired articles. So far, the 
French nation is jubilant that M. Poincare has 
scored heavily on points. He is a defter penman, 
and, moreover, he does not delegate his draughts¬ 
manship to a Committee of Ministers, all holding 
irreconcilable views as to how to proceed, when to 
proceed, and whither to proceed, and amongst 
whom there is no agreement except on one point— 
that no one quite knows what action to propose. 

i London, August 27th, 1923. 

[234] 



WHAT NEXT? 


Up to this last reply they cherished the vain de¬ 
lusion that the French could be shelled out of the 
Ruhr by reproaches which were both querulous and 
apologetic. That is not the way to shift continental 
statesmanship from its purpose. The French 
Foreign Office is better informed as to Cabinet 
divisions in this country than are the British public. 
It knows that the Prime Minister and Foreign Sec¬ 
retary dare not take measures which will hamper 
French action in the Ruhr. 

When the Tory Diehards placed co-operation 
with France in the forefront of their programme 
they honestly meant it. For them it was not a mere 
manoeuvre to unhorse the Coalition. They cannot, 
therefore, support an attitude of resistance to 
French pressure on Germany. A refusal to join 
France in squeezing Germany is to them a con¬ 
tinuation of the evil of the Coalition they overthrew 
with the help of Mr. Stanley Baldwin and Lord 
Curzon. They will not tolerate it. 

That explains-the impotence of British diplomacy 
in a situation which is so critical to our existence as 
a great commercial people. The Cabinet can agree 
on wordy notes; they are hopelessly divided as to 
action. They have, therefore, dispersed far and 

[235] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


wide to search for fortuitous guidance hither and 
thither—some in the tranquillity of their English 
country houses; some in the healing springs of 
France; some in the mists of Scottish moorlands. 
Mayhap one of them will bring home a policy ac¬ 
ceptable to his colleagues. It is all very humiliating 
to the Empire that raised ten millions of men and 
spent £10,000,000,000 of its treasure to win the 
War. The net result of the voluminous correspond¬ 
ence on which our rulers have concentrated months 
of anxious wisdom and unwearying hesitancy is 
that the Allies whom we saved from destruction re¬ 
fuse to move one inch out of their road to secure our 
friendly companionship. They are marching reso¬ 
lutely in one direction, whilst we are shambling 
along in another. 

We have travelled long distances from each other 
since January last, and we are now altogether out 
of sight of the position we held in common when 
we met the Germans at Cannes early last year. 1 
The Entente has never been more cordial than it 
was then—it has never shown more promise of hope¬ 
ful partnership for the peace of the world. We 
were on the point of securing an amicable and busi- 

1 The Cannes Conference, January, 1922. 

[236] 



WHAT NEXT? 

nesslike arrangement with Germany for the pay¬ 
ment of reparations and of concluding an agree¬ 
ment for protecting the frontiers of France and 
Belgium against the possibility of future invasion. 

From these starting-points it was proposed that 
Britain, France, Italy, and Belgium should advance 
together to a general settlement of European prob¬ 
lems in East and West—political, financial, eco¬ 
nomic and transport. This we had agreed to do 
and, with the unity and goodwill which then pre¬ 
vailed, could have accomplished. 

But M. Poincare had no use for the dove of peace. 
He wanted to fly his falcon. He had trained and 
bred it in the French farmyard, and there it had 
brought down many a domestic bird successfully. 
When his chance came he flew it at the wounded 
German eagle. It is poor sport, and somewhat 
cruel, but it evidently gives great joy to Frenchmen 
of a sort. The best are ashamed of it, but their 
voices are drowned in the clamour of the unthink¬ 
ing. If the helpless bird is torn to pieces, there is 
nothing in that for French or Belgian larders. 

Quite unintentionally the hawk has brought 
down the Entente also. It may not be dead, but it 
has made its last flight. Henceforth international 

[237] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

arrangements will be on a less exclusive basis. 
France is irrevocably committed to the exploitation 
of the Ruhr by force. That is what ‘ w pay or stay” 
means. To that policy the majority in this country 
are definitely opposed. If the Diehards in the 
Cabinet were by any chance to win, and either Mr. 
Baldwin surrendered or resigned in favour of a 
Poincarist administration in this country, neither 
he nor any possible successors could carry the coun¬ 
try along into the Ruhr venture. 

Some of them around the Prime Minister who 
have so suddenly assumed pro-French sentiments 
as the shortest cut to higher altitudes than those to 
which they have yet succeeded in climbing, know 
full well that, although they may use the Diehards 
for their own ends, if they succeeded in their some¬ 
what sinister purpose they could not carry out the 
Diehard policy. 

They are, therefore, endeavouring to provide for 
contingencies by negotiating on their own a fresh 
understanding with France. But British Premiers 
are not appointed at Rambouillet nor do they draw 
their authority from the Quai d’Or say. Whatever 
may be thought of Mr. Bonar Law or of Mr. Stan¬ 
ley Baldwin by political partisans, no one suggests 
[238] 


WHAT NEXT? 

that they derived their promotion from other than 
purely British sources. 

But for a fortnight nothing is to happen—ex¬ 
cept the spread of unemployment in Britain and of 
despair in Germany. At the end of the fortnight 
will there be a surrejoinder to M. Poincare’s re¬ 
joinder? Or will there be another conference? 

Both M. Poincare and the present Parliamentary 
regime in Britain came into power on the cry of 
“Enough of these eternal conferences; let us return 
to the good old diplomatic methods that prevailed 
before the War”—and, they might add, “which 
helped to make it possible.” Nevertheless, Mr. 
Bonar Law’s administration during its short tenure 
of six months participated in four European con¬ 
ferences, and M. Poincare, during his eighteen 
months’ official career, has found it necessary to 
take part, directly, in five conferences, and directly 
and indirectly in eight. The French Press are 
urging him on to add another to a record which 
already beats that of M. Briand in the matter of 
“joy-riding”—to quote the contemptuous Diehard 
name for international conferences during Coalition 
days. 

It is a suspicious circumstance that those who 

[239] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

were once resentful and scornful of conferences 

♦ 

should now be clamouring for one both here and in 
France. The reason is scarcely concealed by ardent 
advocates of the resumption of “picnic diplomacy.’’ 
At the old conferences, so it is contended, France 
was invariably forced to give way. Now she can 
and will command the situation. 

There is a new note of confidence ringing through 
French despatches and echoed in the French Press. 
France must get what she wants; Britain must 
take what she is given. The French share of 
reparations must first be assured—debts due to 
Britain can come out of what is left. It is rather 
greedy, but characteristic, of the British that they 
should expect to be paid what is owing to them! 
With their smug and hypocritical Puritan tempera¬ 
ment and outlook they insist that contracts should 
be respected! France, for the sake of the Entente, 
will make a concession even to British cupidity and 
Pharisaism. It will permit the British Empire to 
collect—not the whole of what is due to her, but a 
much-reduced claim out of Germany once the 
French demand for reparations is cashed or as good 
as cashed! 

To me this is a new France. During my years 
[240] 



WHAT NEXT? 

of discussion with French statesmen I never heard 
this voice. I had three or four talks with M. 
Poincare, and I never heard him speak in these 
supercilious tones. Impunity has developed them 
since to their present pitch of stridency. 

Belgium is to suggest a meeting of the Premiers. 
When it comes the French minimum terms are to 
be rigid and unequivocal. Here they are:— 

1. France must be paid her irreducible mini¬ 
mum of <£1,300,000,000 in respect of reparations, 
whatever happens to any one else. 

2. Belgium is also to have her priority of £100,- 

000,000. 

3. As Germany cannot raise these huge sums 
immediately, France and Belgium are to hold the 
Ruhr until they are paid. Hints have been thrown 
out by the more conciliatory French journals that 
the French Government might consider an early 
retirement from the Ruhr if the payment of repa¬ 
rations were made the subject of an international 
guarantee. That implies Britain and America be¬ 
coming sureties for payment of the German in¬ 
demnity ! 

4. As to the rest, France and Belgium have no 

[241] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

objection, subject to the above conditions, to Great 
Britain collecting £700,000,000, i.e. 9 about 23 per 
cent., of her international claims (debts and repa¬ 
rations) from Germany. But this munificent con¬ 
cession is to be made on the distinct understanding 
that she forgoes entirely the remaining 77 per cent, 
of her bonds. The Allies and Germany between 
them owe Great Britain £3,000,000,000. The 
French and Belgian governments are willing that 
Great Britain should collect £700,000,000 of that 
amount from Germany, provided the remaining 
£2,300,000,000 is for ever cancelled—and always 
provided that the £1,400,000,000 due to France and 
Belgium has been satisfactorily guaranteed. 

5. These handsome terms can only be pro¬ 
pounded if Germany first of all withdraws all pas¬ 
sive resistance in the Ruhr. That is an essential 
preliminary. 

The French government have stated these terms 
with such precision and such emphasis, and repeated 
them with such undeviating insistence, that any 
departure from them on the French side seems 
impossible. The hope of a conference rests entirely 
on the confidence in a British surrender. There is 
[242] 


WHAT NEXT? 

a dismal “joy-ride” in prospect for the British 
Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary. Is it 
conceivable they can contemplate such a capitula¬ 
tion? I do not see how the present Government, 
after all it has said and written, can so far submit 
to French dictation as to make it likely that further 
discussions would lead to agreement. 

What is the alternative? Herr Stresemann can 
alone answer that question. It is not yet clear 
what he means to do. Perhaps he is feeling his 
way to a decision. 

London , August 27th, 1923. 


[ 243 ] 


XXI 


THE BRITISH DEBT TO AMERICA 

As I roll homeward along the coast of Spain a 
wireless message announces that the British govern¬ 
ment have accepted the American debt terms. 

The details which I have received are not suffi¬ 
cient to enable me to form an opinion regarding the 
character of those terms, or their bearing on Allied 
indebtedness to Britain as to the terms of payment. 
I know nothing of the steps taken by Mr. Baldwin 
and the government of which he is a member to 
make this the first step in an all-round settlement 
of inter-Allied debts. That is a matter of infinite 
moment to us, and I assume that this is somewhere 
—and effectively—in the arrangement. 

As to the payment of our own debt, the govern¬ 
ment represent the real sentiment of the nation as 
a whole. The British taxpayer is no doubt fully 
alive to the fact that this heavy debt was incurred 
by him during the war in the main in order to fi¬ 
nance American supplies to our Allies. We could 
[ 244 ] 



THE BRITISH DEBT TO AMERICA 

have paid for all the supplies we required for our 
own use without resort to any loan from the Ameri¬ 
can government. Nevertheless, the money was ad¬ 
vanced by the lender on our credit and our signa¬ 
ture. 

Our credit as a nation, therefore, demands that 
we should pay. Whether we can collect enough 
money from our own debtors to meet this charge be¬ 
comes increasingly doubtful, as it is becoming in¬ 
creasingly needful. 

Britain is alone in thinking she is under any 
moral obligation to pay the external liabilities in¬ 
curred for the effective prosecution of the war. 
The attitude of the late and of the present govern¬ 
ment is identical in this respect. 

Why have the British public taken a different 
view of their national obligations towards external 
war debts from that adopted by other Allies? In 
giving the answer I do not wish to dwell on obvious 
ethical considerations which must weigh whenever 
you consider whether you will carry out an engage¬ 
ment which you have entered into with another who 
has already performed his part of the engagement 
on the strength of your promise. 

These ought to be conclusive; but to urge them 

[ 245 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

might be deemed to be an unworthy reflection on 
the honour of those who take a different view of 
their national duty. 

I have no desire to offer censure or criticism 
upon their decision. They, no doubt, have their 
reasons for the course they are adopting. We have 
certainly overwhelming reasons for showing an 
honest readiness to pay our debts. 

The settling up of accounts is always an un¬ 
pleasant business, especially amongst friends. 
Strangers expect it and prepare for it—and there 
is no resentment when the bill arrives. But a man 
hates reminding his friend at the end of a business 
in which both have been engaged in warm amity 
that there is “a little balance” to be paid up. He 
has been expecting the friend to mention the mat¬ 
ter to him. So he puts off introducing the unpleas¬ 
ant topic from year to year. But the friend dis¬ 
appoints his expectations. Not a hint comes from 
that quarter of any realisation that there is anything 
due. It soon looks as if it had been forgotten alto¬ 
gether. 

The friend is most insistent on collecting the busi¬ 
ness accounts due to himself. He is angry at all 
[ 246 ] 



THE BRITISH DEBT TO AMERICA 

delays in payment of his own bills. But his con¬ 
science is blind on the side of the debts he himself 
owes. It is not an uncommon experience, and we 
are suffering from it to-day. The war left us a 
creditor nation to the extent of over 2,000 million 
pounds, and a debtor nation to the extent of 
about half that amount. We readily accepted an 
invitation from our creditor to discuss the repay¬ 
ment of the debt we owe. Our debtors have dis¬ 
played an invincible reluctance to enter into a simi¬ 
lar discussion with us. 

That ought not to influence our final decision. 
Britain is the greatest of all international traders, 
and her credit rests on the reputation she has well 
earned—that her bond is a sacred trust which her 
people always honour and redeem without count¬ 
ing the cost in toil and treasure. I remember when 
war broke out the panic which seized bankers and 
brokers as they contemplated the obligations in¬ 
curred by British firms with their support to finance 
world trade. These liabilities ran into hundreds of 
millions sterling, and the only security for repay¬ 
ment was represented by a bundle of flimsy paper, 
criss-crossed with the signatures of men most of 

[ 247 ] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

whom no British banker had ever seen, many of 
them dwelling in countries with whom we were 
actually at war. 

There was one signature, however, on each paper 
which was known to bankers and carried with it the 
good name of Britain throughout the world; and it 
was that of some well-known British firm. Traders 
in far-distant lands parted with their produce on the 
credit of that signature and of the country with 
which it was associated. 

It is true that the government had no responsi¬ 
bility for any of these transactions; but the honour 
of Britain was involved in seeing that the foreign 
merchants should not suffer ruin because they put 
their trust in British commercial integrity. For 
that reason the British government of the day 
shouldered the burden, took all the risk, and al¬ 
though it meant a liability of between four hundred 
and five hundred millions sterling, not a voice was 
raised in protest. 

The action then taken, though quite unprece¬ 
dented, was not only honourable; it was wise. It 
saved British pride from a reproach; it also saved 
British credit from a blow from which it would not 
have recovered for a generation. During that gen- 
[ 248 ] 


THE BRITISH DEBT TO AMERICA 

eration this lucrative business would have passed 
into other hands. 

As soon as the war was over the people of Britain, 
with an instinctive impulse that required no per¬ 
suasion to stimulate its activity, set about the task 
of restoring their war-battered credit. Govern¬ 
ment, bankers, merchants, brokers, manufacturers, 
and workers of all kinds were of one mind; borrow¬ 
ing must come to an end; Britain must pay her way 
—whatever the sacrifice. Expenditure was ruth¬ 
lessly cut down. The army and navy were reduced 
below pre-war dimensions. Other services were 
curtailed. Heavy taxation was imposed—taxation 
such as no other country bears. The budget at 
home must balance. Debts to other countries 
must be paid off. Already large sums have 
been paid abroad. It required courage and con¬ 
stancy to- pursue such a policy; but the endurance of 
the nation was beyond praise. It is now calmly 
facing the liquidation of this heavy debt to the 
United States of America; but no party has yet 
arisen, or is likely to arise, to demand that the hand 
of the negotiators should be arrested. Britain 
means to pay the last of her debts without a mur¬ 


mur. 


[ 249 ] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

We are already reaping some of the reward. 
The purchasing value of our currency has already 
risen under its burdens, and, as a consequence, the 
cost of living has fallen steadily, while other coun¬ 
tries who have pursued a different policy find the 
cost of living for their people ascending month by 
month. 

A short time ago we were taunted in the French 
Chamber of Deputies by the president of the coun¬ 
cil that our unsound financial policy had been re¬ 
sponsible for our unemployment. It is true that 
if we had gone on borrowing instead of paying our 
way—if we had defied our foreign creditors instead 
of paying them—we also, like many other European 
countries, might have fostered an artificial pros¬ 
perity by means of a discredited currency. But 
British credit would have rapidly disappeared be¬ 
yond recovery and British trade would soon have 
followed. Meanwhile, the cost of living in Great 
Britain would have been double what it is to-day. 
We all therefore dismissed that policy from our 
minds without paying it the tribute of a discussion. 

Trust is the only soil in which credit flourishes. 
Had that trust been forfeited British buyers and 
consequently British consumers would to-day have 
[ 250 ] 


THE BRITISH DEBT TO AMERICA 

been paying more for their wheat, their meat, their 
cotton, and their wool. The burden of repayment 
to the United States will be infinitely less than that 
of the indirect burden involved in large purchases 
with a discredited currency. 

The government are therefore right in arranging 
with the American treasury without loss of time for 
the liquidation of a debt incurred by this country. 
I am taking for granted that they have made every 
effort to see that the agreement shall form a part 
of an all-round settlement of inter-Allied debts. 
But as to our own debt the moral obligation must 
remain whatever our Allies do or fail to do. Why 
it was incurred, the circumstances in which it was 
entered into, the purposes for which the money was 
advanced, were open to the consideration of the 
American government in arranging terms. That, 
however, was their privilege; ours is to honour our 
signature. 


[ 251 ] 


XXII 


INTER-ALLIED DEBTS 

A cold shiver ran down the back of England 
when it was announced officially that the British 
government had definitely agreed to pay over 
£30,000,000 a year for sixty years to the United 
States in respect of debts incurred by us on behalf 

of our Allies without seeking a contribution from 

% 

our debtors to protect the taxpayers of this country. 
It is not that anyone dreamt the evil dream of re¬ 
pudiation. That was never woven into the texture 
even of the worst nightmare out of the many that 
have disturbed our repose since the greatest night¬ 
mare of all left the world a quivering nervous 
wreck. 

Nor did we expect remission of our debts. 
Whenever we were tempted to exaggerate the 
bounds of human charity paragraphs appeared that 
reminded us of the attitude of the “Middle West.” 
America was discovered by Europe centuries ago, 
but the “Middle West,” as a political entity, is to 
[252] 


9 


INTER-ALLIED DEBTS 

untutored Europeans a discovery of the war. We 
were then told by returning explorers that it was 
the seat of the American conscience—inexorable, 
intractable, but irresistible when engaged in any en¬ 
terprise. How potent this conscience was, as a 
world force, the war demonstrated. From the 
heights it hurled an avalanche of force against Ger¬ 
many that overwhelmed the last hope of resistance. 
Unfortunately for us when it came to debts we 
struck against the hard side of the Middle West 
conscience. 

Our hope was therefore not in remission. There 
were, however, many other possibilities. We were 
not the only debtors of the American government. 
Other Allies had borrowed not merely indirectly 
through us, but directly from America. We had 
every confidence that the United States government 
would not mete out to Britain severer treatment 
than it was prepared to accord to our Allies. We 
had to contend, it is true, with legends of our in¬ 
exhaustible wealth. Apart from our great coal de¬ 
posits, and a climate which leaves those who endure 
it no alternative but activity, we have no treasure 
except the industry, the resources and the inherited 
skill of our people. We have nothing like the rich 

[253] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


plains and the fertilising and ripening sunshine of 
France, which maintain sixty per cent, of its popu¬ 
lation. Our sources of wealth—apart from coal— 
are precarious, for they depend more largely than 
any other country on conditions outside our own. 
We are international providers, merchants and car¬ 
riers. A sixty-year contract to pay large sums 
across the seas is in many respects a more serious 
consideration for us than for countries whose riches 
are inherent in their soil and are, therefore, more 
self-contained. The demoralised condition of the 
world markets has left us with a larger proportion 
of our industrial population unemployed than any 
other European country. I hear tales of unemploy¬ 
ment in the United States of America, but the re¬ 
ports that reach us here on American unemploy¬ 
ment are so contradictory that I can build no argu¬ 
ment upon them. But, as to the gigantic dimen¬ 
sions of our unemployed problem there can be no 
doubt. We have 1,400,000 workmen on the unem¬ 
ployed register drawing unemployment pay in one 
form or another. The annual cost to the nation of 
feeding its workless population runs to over T100,- 
000,000—almost the figure of the annuity de¬ 
manded from Germany as a war indemnity. 

[254] 




INTER-ALLIED DEBTS 


Although there are signs of improvement the 
omens point to a prolonged period of subnormal 
trade. Continuous depression for years will mean 
that Britain will suffer more from the devastation 
to her trade caused by the war than France from 
the devastation of her provinces. Our country, 
anxious about its means of livelihood, with a mil¬ 
lion and a half of its workmen walking the streets 
in a vain search for work, has to bear the heaviest 
burden of taxation in the world. Why? Because 
it has not only to pay interest on its own heavy war 
debts, but also on £3,000,000,000 which it either 
advanced to the Allies or incurred on their behalf. 
That is why we felt hopeful that the United States 
would not discriminate against a nation so situated. 

When I talk of debts the Allies owe to us, I 
want to emphasise the fact that these debts are 
not paper myths nor tricks of accountancy. They 
are onerous facts representing a real burden borne 
at this hour by the bent and panting taxpayer of 
Britain. If these loans had never been made the 
weight on his shoulders to-day would have been 
lighter by over two shillings in the pound. He is 
every year paying to the actual lenders—some Brit¬ 
ish, some American—that proportion of his income. 

[255] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


It is a weight he undertook to carry for his Allies 
during the war on the sacred pledge of those Allies 
that they would take it over after the war. The 
American government borrowed from their public 
to make advances to Great Britain, and have called 
upon the British taxpayer to redeem his pledge. 
We make no complaint, for the demand is a mitiga¬ 
tion of the strict letter of the bond. But that 
amount is in substance part of the debt owing by 
the Allies to Britain. And the British taxpayer 
naturally feels it is hard on him to have to bear not 
only his own legitimate burdens but that he should 
in addition have to carry the debts of his less heavily 
taxed brethren in continental countries. He natu¬ 
rally inferred that if equal pressure had been ad¬ 
ministered on all debtors alike it would have forced 
an all-around consultation which would have 
terminated in an all-round settlement. 

That was the real purport of the Balfour note. 
The true significance of that great document has 
been entirely misunderstood—sometimes carelessly, 
sometimes purposely, sometimes insolently. I 
guarantee that not one per cent, of its critics if 
confronted suddenly with an examination on its 
contents would secure one mark out of a hundred. 

[256] 



INTER-ALLIED DEBTS 

It has suffered the same fate as the treaty of Ver¬ 
sailles. Opinion is sharply divided as to both be¬ 
tween those who rend without reading and those 
who read without rending. Most men have re¬ 
ceived their impressions of the Balfour note from 
denunciatory phrases penned by writers who re¬ 
ceived their ideas about it from men who gave in¬ 
structions to condemn it without ever reading it. 
The men who really understood both the Versailles 
treaty and the Balfour note have been too busy to 
find time to inform, to interpret, and to explain. 

But the time has come when the public attention 
should be once more drawn to the remarkable and 
far-reaching proposals of the Balfour note. They 
constitute an offer on the part of Britain to measure 
the amount of her claims against her Allies by the 
extent of her obligations to the United States of 
America. The British government even offered to 
include the claim of their country against Germany 
in this generous concession. What does that mean 
in reference to present conditions? That if the Al¬ 
lies and Germany between them found the £30,- 
000,000 a year which Britain has undertaken to pay 
America, she would forgo her claim to the £3,300,- 
000,000 due to her under contract and treaty. It 

[257] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


was a great offer and if accepted would have pro¬ 
duced results beneficent beyond computation. Brit¬ 
ain, which would have been the heaviest direct 
loser, would have profited indirectly through the 
world recovery that would have ensued. 

How was it received? Some criticised it because 
it asked too little—some because it demanded too 
much. Many criticised because they were deter¬ 
mined to approve nothing that emanated from such 
a government, but most of its censors condemned it 
because they never took the trouble to understand 
it, and the shrillest among the street cries happened 
to denounce it. The government that propounded 
it soon after left the seat of authority, and the ad¬ 
ministration that succeeded put forward a new 
scheme which attracted even less acceptance. So 
this great project which would have settled for ever 
the question which above all others is vexing peace 
and unsettling minds in Europe was pigeon-holed 
where it was not already basketed. 

But surely this is not the end of all endeavours to 
reach a settlement of the question of inter-Allied 
debts. We cannot rest satisfied with an arrange¬ 
ment which effectively binds us to pay without pros¬ 
pect of the slightest contribution from our debtors. 

[258] 



INTER-ALLIED DEBTS 

What America cannot indulge in we cannot af¬ 
ford. The gold of Europe now lies in its coffers. 
Who are we—plunged in the mire of debt up to our 
nostrils—to give ourselves airs of generosity su¬ 
perior to the only golden land left in this war- 
stripped earth? 

If there is to be a general jubilee in which all 
alike participate in order to give the world a new 
start, then I feel sure Britain will play her part 
bravely and nobly. But a jerry-mandered jubilee 
which frees France, Italy and Belgium from all 
their debts whilst leaving Britain sweating to pay 
off debts incurred for her Allies on the strength of 
their bond—that we cannot bear. 

I trust the government will insist on an arrange¬ 
ment with our Allies which, even if it is not a replica 
of our contract with the American government, will 
at any rate ensure us a contribution that will safe¬ 
guard us against loss under that contract. It is I 
fear hopeless to expect that we should be recouped 
the 2s. in the pound which interest on Allied debts 
costs our taxpayers, but at any rate we might be 
guaranteed against the 6d. in the pound which the 
American instalments involve. I feel the effort is 
beset with difficulties and that the outlook is not 

[259] 





WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


hopeful. There have of late been a few discour¬ 
aging symptoms. One is the reception accorded at 
the recent Paris conference to the British prime 
minister’s liberal offer regarding inter-Allied debts. 
It was a tactical error to open the conference with 
such a scheme and the effect was singularly unfor¬ 
tunate. 

Had I been disposed to press my criticisms on 
the conduct of the recent negotiations in Paris it 
would have been that they were so managed that for 
the first time since the war Britain has been com¬ 
pletely isolated at a European conference. That 
is a misfortune, for it encouraged the French gov¬ 
ernment to rash action. Up to the last conference 
Britain and Italy had remained in substantial ac¬ 
cord even when France and Belgium took a dif¬ 
ferent view, and Belgium had never before quitted 
any of the gatherings in complete disagreement 
with Great Britain. So France, always tempted as 
she was to occupy the Ruhr, hesitated to do so in 
the face of so formidable an Allied resistance. 
What is relevant, however, to the subject of this 
article is the cause of our unwonted isolation on the 
occasion of the last conference. The British pre¬ 
mier started the negotiations by tabling proposals 
which promised forgiveness of most of the indebted- 
[ 260 ] 


INTER-ALLIED DEBTS 

ness of these countries to Britain, but which implied 
immediate arrangements for beginning repayment 
of the rest. This suggestion of repayment instantly 
consolidated opposition to the whole of the British 
plan. It became clear that existing governments 
on the continent had no intention, unless firmly 
pressed, of paying the smallest percentage of the 
debt they incurred on the faith of a solemn engage¬ 
ment to repay the loan when that was possible, and 
to pay interest meanwhile. If we point to the fact 
as we did in the Balfour note, that we have under¬ 
taken to repay the United States of America the 
heavy debt incurred by us on behalf of the Allies, 
they simply shrug their shoulders and say in effect: 
“That is your affair. We repay neither Britain 
nor America, and there is an end of it.” 

The other unpleasant incident is a speech de¬ 
livered by M. Poincare in the French Chamber in 
the course of which he dealt casually with the sub¬ 
ject of inter-Allied indebtedness. The French 
prime minister then announced categorically that 
France had no intention of paying her debts until 
she has first received her share of reparations from 
Germany. What does that mean in effect? That 
the France represented by M. Poincare has no in- 

[ 261 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


tention of ever paying her debts. When the colos¬ 
sal figure of German reparations is taken into ac¬ 
count thirty years is a moderate estimate of the 
period required for its liquidation. Is the French 
debt to lie dormant carrying no interest meanwhile? 
If it is, then the debt is practically wiped out, for 
the present value of <£500,000,000 debt payable 
thirty years hence is insignificant. The present gov¬ 
ernment of France have therefore declared they do 
not mean to pay what France owes. Surely the 
time to dictate the conditions of your repayment 
of a loan—when you propose to pay, how much you 
propose to pay, or whether you mean to pay at all 
—is when you are borrowing and not after you have 
spent the money. 

And yet in the same speech in which M. Poincare 
serves up hot platitudes for senatorial palates about 
the sanctity of national obligations, he dismisses 
France’s faithful ally with the cold comfort that 
France is too busy collecting the accounts due to 
her to attend to the debts she owes. I believe in 
my heart that there is a France of which he is not 
the spokesman—a great France which will not treat 
shabbily a faithful friend who stood by her in the 
hour of despair and who is now staggering under 
[262] 




INTER-ALLIED DEBTS 

unparalleled burdens incurred in the discharge of 
the obligations of friendship. 

All this makes it more necessary that the situa¬ 
tion should be cleared up without undue delay. 
Having just completed negotiations for liquidating 
our own war indebtedness to America we are in a 
position to insist on a settlement with those on 
whose behalf we incurred that indebtedness. If 
nothing is done the conditions will harden against 
us. We shall be assumed to have accepted the Poin¬ 
care repudiation. I do not know what conditions 
the government have made with the United States 
government as to the marketability of the securities 
to be created in funding our debt. If they are to be 
placed on the market the chance of any future deal 
is destroyed. Ere that be done we must know where 
we are in reference to our own claims. I trust the 
government will act promptly. Delay was justifi¬ 
able so long as we were in the same position in ref¬ 
erence to what we owed as what we claimed. The 
Baldwin settlement has altered all that. If we do 
not insist on an arrangement now the British tax¬ 
payer will have the fate of Issachar—that of the 
poor beast between two burdens—his own and that 
of the Allies. 


[ 263 ] 


XXIII 


THE BRITISH ELECTIONS 

It is the duty of every patriotic citizen, in view 
of the difficulties with which the country is con¬ 
fronted, to assist the government of the day by 
every means at his disposal. Factious criticism dis¬ 
turbs judgment and tends to unnerve. Govern¬ 
ments to-day require full command of mind and 
nerve to enable them to arrive at sound decisions 
and to persevere in them. Faction is, therefore, 
treason to the country. 

That does not, however, preclude a calm survey 
of the elections and their meaning. Quite the con¬ 
trary, for we must think of the future and prepare 
for it. 

The result of the elections has fully justified 
those who maintained that no party standing alone 
could hope to secure the measure of public support 
which will guarantee stable government. It is true 
that the Conservatives have succeeded in obtaining 
the return of a majority of members to the new 
[264] 


THE BRITISH ELECTIONS 

Parliament. But the most notable feature of the 
elections is the return of a decisive majority 
of members by a very definite minority of the 
electors. 

I observe that the prime minister, in returning 
thanks to the nation, claims that he has received 
a vote of confidence from the people of this country. 
Out of a total poll of fifteen millions his candidates 
secured less than six million votes. Making full al¬ 
lowance for uncontested seats, this figure cannot 
be stretched out to a height much above six mil¬ 
lions. 

That means that only two-fifths of the electorate 
voted confidence in the administration, whilst three- 
fifths voted confidence in other leaders or groups. 
A party which has a majority of three millions 
recorded against it on a national referendum can 
hardly claim to have received a national vote of 
confidence. 

It might be argued that when the question of 
confidence or no confidence comes to be stated, the 
National Liberals having promised co-operation, 
the votes recorded by them ought not to be placed 
on the debit side of the confidence account. The 
basis of the appeal made by the National Liberal 

[265] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


candidates for support is practically that stated by 
me in my Manchester speech: 

“The supreme task of statesmanship at this hour 
is the pacification of the nations, so that the people 
shall have leisure to devote themselves to the peace¬ 
ful avocations of life, to fill up the depleted reser¬ 
voirs from which we all draw. 

“My course is a clear one. I will support with 
all my might any government that devotes itself 
and lends its energy to that task with single-mind¬ 
edness, fearlessness, and with resolution—provided 
it does not embark upon measures which inflict per¬ 
manent injury upon the country, whether these 
measures be reactionary or revolutionary. That 
does not mean that I pledge myself to support in¬ 
efficiency, vacillation, or infirmity in any govern¬ 
ment or in any party. But any government that 
does not pursue that course I will resist with all my 
might. That is my policy.” 

I have perused the addresses of many National 
Liberal candidates and I have addressed many 
meetings in their constituencies, and I find that 
their attitude towards the government is defined in 
these terms, with purely verbal variations. The 
address of Mr. J. D. Gilbert, who won Central 
[ 266 ] 



THE BRITISH ELECTIONS 

Southwark, is a very fair sample taken out of the 
bulk: 

“If you honour me again with your confidence I 
will support any progressive measures brought for¬ 
ward by the present government or any other gov¬ 
ernment. I shall not offer factious opposition or 
nagging criticism while our country is in difficulties 
at home or abroad.” 

There may be one or two who went further, but 
none expressed confidence. 

I have made some inquiries as to the number of 
Conservative votes polled by National Liberal 
candidates. I am informed that on an average it 
represents less than one-third of the total. At the 
last election 167 National Liberal candidates were 
put up. They polled an aggregate of 1,652,823 
votes, that is, an average of 9,897 per candidate. 
What proportion of this vote was Conservative? 
There is a good practical method of testing this 
question. In sixty-two seats National Liberals 
were fought by Conservative as well as by other 
candidates. In these cases the average vote polled 
by National Liberals was 6,820. That means that 

[267] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


where the Conservatives supported National Lib¬ 
eral candidates their votes would represent about 
30 per cent, of the poll for these candidates. On 
the other hand, the number of Liberal votes polled 
by Conservatives, where a compact existed, at least 
balances this account, for although the total in each 
constituency does not equal the figures of the Con¬ 
servative support in National Liberal constituen¬ 
cies, still, that support was spread over many more 
constituencies. 

The prime minister and his chief electioneering 
manager both emphatically repudiated the sugges¬ 
tion that there was any pact between Conservatives 
and National Liberals, and urged that there were 
only local arrangements made between the candi¬ 
dates of the two parties for their mutual conven¬ 
ience. 

As the head of the National Liberal group I ex¬ 
pressed grave doubts as to the composition of the 
ministry, and much apprehension as to the lan¬ 
guage in which its policy was defined. That repre¬ 
sents the general attitude of the National Liberals 
toward the government. Their support, therefore, 
cannot be claimed in totalling the votes recorded 
for the government. 

[268] 


THE BRITISH ELECTIONS 

The fact, therefore, remains that those who voted 
confidence in the government represent only forty 
per cent, of those who went to the poll and twenty- 
five per cent, of the total electorate. 

I place this fact in the forefront, because it is 
bound to have a profound effect upon the course of 
events during—maybe beyond—the lifetime of this 
parliament. It is the first time, certainly since the 
Reform Act, that a pronounced minority of the 
electorate has succeeded in securing the control of 
parliament and the government of the country. 

It would be idle to pretend that in a democratic 
country like ours, thoroughly imbued with the spirit 
of representative government, this does not weaken 
the moral authority of the government of the day. 
Therefore, if the government is wise it will bear that 
fact in mind and will not commit itself to policies 
which challenge the nine millions who between them 
represent a majority of the people of this country. 

It is not a very good beginning to claim these 
striking figures as a vote of confidence. I sincerely 
trust it does not indicate a resolve to ignore, if not 
to defy, what is an obvious and ought to be a 
governing factor in the policy of the government. 

A corollary to this curious working of our elec- 

[ 269 ] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


toral system is to be found in the under-representa¬ 
tion of the other parties in the present parliament, 
and unless representative government is to be dis¬ 
credited altogether, the present parliament ought at 
once to devote its mind and direct its energies to the 
discovery of some method and machinery which 
will avert the danger which clearly arises from the 
working of the present system. 

The parliament of 1918 undoubtedly gave a 
larger majority to the government than the figures 
warranted. But the majority of votes cast for gov¬ 
ernment candidates was so overwhelming that under 
any system of voting there would have been a larger 
working majority for the government than that 
which the present government can command. So 
when trouble arose it was not open to any section 
of the community to object that the government 
had no authority because it did not represent the 
electorate of this country. 

We are faced with a new danger to constitutional 
government. What has happened at this election 
may be repeated at the next—but not necessarily in 
favour of the same party. 

If we are to be governed by a succession of ad¬ 
ministrations who rule in spite of the protest of a 
[270] 



THE BRITISH ELECTIONS 

majority of the people, the authority of govern¬ 
ment will be weakened beyond repair. 

The luck of the electoral table has this time fa¬ 
voured the Conservatives. Next time it may turn 
in favour of the Labour Party. They have at this 
election secured 55 seats out of a total of 141 by a 
minority of votes. 

The conditions were, in many respects, against 
them. Their funds were exhausted by the pro¬ 
longed period of heavy unemployment. The trade 
union movement was passing through an ebb tide 
in its prosperity, both in funds and in members. 
There was a good deal of discontent with the trade 
union leaders. Many workmen felt they had been 
let down badly by some of their activities in indus¬ 
trial disputes. 

Moreover, Labour has been committed by vision¬ 
aries to a rash experiment which handicapped it 
severely in the election. Next time may be the 
spring tide of Labour. They have learnt their les¬ 
son at the polls, and are not likely to repeat the 
blunder of November, 1922. 

This time the votes cast for them have attained 
the gigantic aggregate of four millions and a quar¬ 
ter. Supposing under those conditions they add 

[271] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

another two millions to their poll. Although the 
other groups may secure between them nine mil¬ 
lions of votes, Labour may have the same luck as 
the Conservatives at the last election and be placed 
in power by a decisive majority of members elected 
by a minority of votes. 

I am not going to speculate as to what may hap¬ 
pen under those conditions; the kind of legislation 
that may be proposed; the action of the House of 
Lords in reference to it, provoking, as it undoubt¬ 
edly will, a fierce class conflict; or the turn given 
to administration in the various departments of 
government. 

Of one thing I am, however, certain. That is, 
that as a minority administration in 1922 and on¬ 
wards will help to discredit government with cer¬ 
tain classes of the community, a minority Labour 
administration would weaken the respect of other 
classes for representative government, and between 
them an atmosphere will be created inimical to the 
moral authority of all government in this country. 

I have many a time warned the public that, in 
spite of appearances, this country is in many re¬ 
spects very top-heavy. It is over-industrialised. 
Its means of livelihood are in some ways precari- 
[272] 


THE BRITISH ELECTIONS 


ous, and depend on conditions over which we have 
very little control, and once something happens 
which may have the effect of causing a lean-over 
either in one direction or in the other, it will be 
more difficult to recover than in lands where the 
population depends in the main for its livelihood 
upon the cultivation of the soil and the develop¬ 
ment of the natural resources of the country. 

I therefore earnestly trust that in the interests 
of stability and good government, which must be 
based on the goodwill and co-operation of the com¬ 
munity as a whole, this parliament will apply its 
mind seriously to finding some means of preventing 
a repetition either in one direction or another of 
this freak of representative government. 

Another feature of the election is the heavy vote 
polled by Liberal candidates in spite of untoward 
circumstances. 

Whatever the difficulties of the Labour Party 
might be in this election they were not comparable 
to those under which Liberalism fought the cam¬ 
paign. It was divided by bitter internecine con¬ 
flicts. The leaders of one section seemed to be more 
intent on keeping representatives of the other sec¬ 
tion out of parliament than on fighting for the com- 

[273] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


mon cause. The bulk of their speeches was devoted 
to attacks on the leaders of the other Liberal group, 
and there was not much room left for a statement 
of the Liberal case. 

What happened in Manchester is typical. Here 
the rank and file took the matter in hand and en¬ 
forced agreement. Lord Grey was brought down 
to bless it. But the whole of his benedictory speech 
consisted of a thin and dreary drip of querulous 
comment on the leaders of the other group, with a 
distinct hint that the return of a Conservative gov¬ 
ernment would be by no means a bad thing in the 
interests of the country. 

The speech was hailed by a Tory journal with the 
heading “Lord Grey Supports Mr. Bonar Law.” 
He then went straight to support Mr. McKinnon 
Wood as candidate with a repetition of the same 
speech. Thence he rushed off to reiterate the same 
performance at Bedford in support of Lady Law- 
son, and he finished off by reciting it for two days 
at meetings in support of Mr. Walter Runciman. 

No wonder that he succeeded in damping Liberal 
enthusiasm to such an extent that his unfortunate 
proteges surprised even their opponents in the pov¬ 
erty of the support given them at the polls. 

[274] 


THE BRITISH ELECTIONS 

As soon as the coalition broke up the leaders of 
this Liberal section met to consider the situation. 
The one positive result of their deliberations was 
not the issue of a ringing appeal for unity on the 
basis of Liberal principles, but a peevish intimation 
through the press that efforts at unity were to be 
discouraged at the election. It was clearly or¬ 
dained that the Coalition Liberals should be crushed 
out. The Conservatives spurned them, and the In¬ 
dependent Liberals gave notice that they had no use 
for them. They were destined for extinction. 
Lord Crewe’s speech proceeded on the same lines. 
May I say how sincerely I rejoice in the tribute to 
the “amateur diplomatist” which is implied in the 
conferring by a Conservative government of the 
blue ribbon of diplomacy upon the leader of the In¬ 
dependent Liberals in the House of Lords? 

This precipitate and lamentable decision lost at 
least forty Liberal seats, gave to the Conservatives 
their majority, and what is equally important es¬ 
tablished the Labour Party as His Majesty’s offi¬ 
cial Opposition in the House of Commons. The 
latter is much the most serious practical result of 
the decisions of the Independent leaders to debar 
united action at the last election. If Liberals had 

[275] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

united when the Coalition came to an end, Liberal¬ 
ism might have polled five million votes. It would 
have now held a powerful second position in parlia¬ 
ment, and the country and the nation would have 
looked to it in the future as it has hitherto done in 
the past for the alternative to “Toryism.” Instead 
of that it is a poor split third. How could they ex¬ 
pect to win at the polls? The National Liberals 
were pursued into their constituencies. Thirty-five 
National Liberal seats were assailed by Independ¬ 
ent Liberal candidates. I am not making a com¬ 
plaint, but offering an explanation. Whatever 
the views of the National Liberal leaders might 
have been on the subject of Liberal unity they were 
given no chance to effect it, and although they en¬ 
tered into no national compact with the Conserva¬ 
tives their followers in certain areas had no option 
but to negotiate local arrangements with the Con¬ 
servatives for mutual support. The implacable at¬ 
titude of the Independent Liberals left them no 
choice in the matter. 

What was the inevitable result? No real fight 
was put up for Liberal principles on either side. 
The Independent Liberals were tangled by the per¬ 
sonal preoccupation of their leaders. They had 
[276] 


THE BRITISH ELECTIONS 


accumulated enormous dumps of ammunition for 
the day of battle on the assumption that the main 
attack would be on the Coalition Liberals, and, al¬ 
though the Conservatives now lined the opposite 
trenches, anger dominated strategy, and the guns 
were still fired at their old foes, whilst the Tory 
government was only bombarded with bouquets. 
On the other hand, the National Liberal leaders 
were embarrassed by the engagements into which 
their followers had been driven by the action of the 
Independent Liberal leaders and the two warring 
factions. 

The National Liberals, in spite of their enormous 
difficulties, have not been exterminated. I am not 
going to enter into a barren inquiry as to whether 
their numbers are or are not greater than those of 
Mr. Asquith’s followers. Let it be assumed that 
they are equal. The marvel is that under these frat¬ 
ricidal conditions so many Liberals of any complex¬ 
ion have been returned. 

I am not setting forth these unhappy facts in 
order to prolong the controversy which has poisoned 
Liberalism for years, but in order to call attention 
to the vitality which, in spite of these depressing 
conditions, can bring up 4,100,000 voters to the 

[277] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

polls. Electorally Liberalism is the balancing 
power, and if it casts its united strength against 
either reaction or subversion its influence must be 
decisive, whatever the composition*of this parlia¬ 
ment may be. 

It is common knowledge that the Independent 
Liberals confidently anticipated the return of at 
least 120 members of their group. The fact that 
they only succeeded in securing the return of about 
fifty is naturally to them a source of deep disap¬ 
pointment. 

If the failure of high hopes leads to contempla¬ 
tion of the real causes of that failure and a sincere 
desire is manifested to substitute co-operation for 
conflict my colleagues and I will welcome it. We 
cannot force our society on an unwilling company. 

During the campaign I repeatedly expressed the 
hope that one outcome of this election would be to 
bring moderate men of progressive outlook in all 
parties to see the wisdom of acting together. 

But progressive minds are by no means confined 
to the Liberal party. I have met and worked with 
them in the Conservative party, and the election 
will have taught many men and women in the La¬ 
bour party that violent and extravagant proposals 
[278] 


THE BRITISH ELECTIONS 

impede progress. If the limits are not too narrowly 
drawn, this parliament may witness the effective 
association of men of many parties who are genu¬ 
inely concerned in the advancement of mankind 
along the paths of peace and progress for the at¬ 
tainment of their common ideals. If that end is 
achieved, the coming years will not be spent in 
vain. 

One word as to the National Liberals. When 
the dissolution came no party was ever placed 
in a more embarrassing and even desperate sit¬ 
uation. 

The Conservatives have at their disposal a great 
political machine. The Labour party could com¬ 
mand the support of all the trade unions, with their 
elaborate machinery for organising the wage-earn¬ 
ing population. The Independent Liberals had in 
England and in Scotland captured the Liberal ma¬ 
chine almost in its entirety, and had spent six years 
in perfecting it, their leaders having no other oc¬ 
cupation. 

The National Liberal leaders inherited no polit¬ 
ical machinery, and were too preoccupied with great 
world affairs to be able to devote any time to the 
improvisation of an effective new organisation. 

[279] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

Conservatives, Independent Liberals, and La¬ 
bour all alike attacked National Liberal seats where 
they thought any advantage might be gained for 
their respective parties by doing so. The Conserva¬ 
tives only refrained from attack in cases where they 
thought there was more to be gained by arrange¬ 
ment. There was a great volume of popular senti¬ 
ment behind our group. I visited Britain, north, 
south, east, west, and I have never witnessed such 
crowds nor such enthusiasm at any electoral con¬ 
test in which I have ever taken part; but there was 
no organisation to convert acclamation into elec¬ 
toral power, and you could not build up a vast po¬ 
litical machine in three weeks. Our supporters 
were not provided with an opportunity to test their 
strength in two-thirds of the constituencies. In 
nearly three hundred constituencies they could not 
do so without impairing the chances of Liberal can¬ 
didates. A compact with Conservatives ruled them 
out of others. 

It is a wonder that, in spite of these adverse and 
even paralysing conditions our numbers are twice 
those of the Independent Liberals in 1918. 

We have now for the first time full opportunity 
for placing our case and point of view before the 
[280] 


THE BRITISH ELECTIONS 

country and organising support for them. It is 
our duty to do so. 

Every month will contribute its justification for 
the course we have hitherto pursued, and for the 
counsel we have steadfastly given to a country 
struggling through abnormal difficulties. 

London , November 20th, 1922. 


[ 281 ] 


XXIV 


HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS 

The startling English by-elections of the last 
few weeks have called attention to the working of 
the new electorate in Great Britain and set men 
pondering about its possibilities in a way a general 
election failed to make them think. Democracy 
in the sense of government of a great state by the 
absolute and unfettered authority of the majority 
of its own citizens of all ranks and conditions is a 
modern experiment. The United States of Amer¬ 
ica are the oldest democracy in the world to-day. 

How many realise that Britain became a democ¬ 
racy for the first time in 1917? Until then the ma¬ 
jority of its adult population had no voice in the 
making or administration of the laws that ruled 
their lives. 

The United States of America,'France and Italy 
have adopted universal suffrage as«the basis of au¬ 
thority for many a year. So have the British Do¬ 
minions, but Britain herself, the pioneer of repre- 
[282] 


HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS 


sentative institutions, until recently shrank from 
the experiment of adult suffrage. Before the Re¬ 
form Act of 1832 the total electorate of this coun¬ 
try numbered only 3 per cent, of the population. 
The distribution of power amongst this small per¬ 
centage was so arranged that even the 3 per cent, 
represented in effect no more than at best 1 per cent. 

A generation of turmoil and agitation, almost 
culminating in revolution, succeeded in forcing 
through a measure which increased the 3 per cent, 
to 4.5 per cent, of the population! It is true that 
the distribution of votes was more equitable, but 
even with that improvement to call this ridiculous 
percentage a democracy would be absurd. Another 
generation of growing agitation ensued. This also 
ended in violence. Then Mr. Disraeli, one of the 
boldest and most venturesome of British statesmen, 
in 1867 doubled the electorate. His measure in¬ 
creased the number of voters to 9 per cent, of the 
population. 

Disraeli’s audacious plunge horrified some of his 
aristocratic supporters and shocked many Whigs. 
“Bob” Lowe had already foretold calamities that 
would follow Gladstone’s more cautious proposals. 
Seven years later saw the election of the first Tory 

[283] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


parliament since 1841. So much for the prophecies 
of the men who always fear evil must flow from 
justice. 

Fifteen years after the Disraeli measure the 
Gladstone administration added another 7 per cent, 
to the electorate. The Gladstone proposals, which 
raised the number of voters to 16 per cent., were so 
vehemently contested that they nearly precipitated 
a Constitutional crisis of the first magnitude. Ulti¬ 
mately, however, they were carried, and there the 
franchise remained until the war. 

The electorate that, through its representatives, 
accepted the German challenge in 1914, and was 
therefore responsible for involving the country in 
the most costly and sanguinary war it ever waged, 
represented one-sixth of the population and about 
one-third of the adults. The conscription act con¬ 
verted the country to the injustice of this state of 
things. Millions of men were forced to risk their 
lives for a policy which they had no share in fashion¬ 
ing. Millions of women faced anxieties and tor¬ 
tures worse than death in pursuit of the same pol¬ 
icy, and yet no woman was allowed to express any 
opinion as to the selection of the rulers who led 
them to this sacrifice. 

[284] 


HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS 

It was felt to be so unjust that in the exaltation 
of war, which lifted men to a higher plane of equity, 
this obvious wrong was redressed. Hence the great¬ 
est of all the enfranchisement acts, the Act of 1917, 
that for the first time converted the British system 
of government into a democracy. 

How has it worked? It is too early to speak of 
its results. Mr. Austen Chamberlain in a letter 1 
has called attention to one aspect of its opera¬ 
tion. He emphasises a fact which is already 
known to every man who has passed through the 
experience of a contested election, that nearly one- 
half the new electorate is unattached to any political 
party. 

If you deduct out of the total the numbers of 
the old electorate which had already formed ties 
of a party character, you will find from the result 
of the elections that more than half the new electo¬ 
rate is free and floating about without any anchor 
or rudder and ready to be towed by the first party 
that succeeded in roping them. Millions of the new 
electors are too indifferent or too undecided about 
political issues to take sides at the polling booths. 

In the hotly contested election of January, 1910, 


i See the Times, March 14, 1923. 


[ 285 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

92 per cent, of the voters went to the poll. At the 
second election which took place in the same year 
the percentage was 89. The slight difference be¬ 
tween the two elections would be accounted for 
by the fact that in the second election the register 
was old. Compare these results with the two elec¬ 
tions which have occurred since the 1917 enfranch¬ 
isement. At the 1918 election 64 per cent, only of 
the voters could be induced to make the acquaint¬ 
ance of the ballot-boxes. This might be explained 
by the inevitable political apathy which follows a 
great war. The pulse of party beat feebly and 
irregularly. The old party organisations had, 
through five years of neglect, fallen into complete 
disrepair—the new party had not yet had time to 
perfect its machinery. Hence the failure of com¬ 
petitive effort to induce at least 6,000,000 of the 
new voters to take a sufficient interest in their new 
privileges to exercise them at the election. 

The next four years were a period of growing 
political activity. The new party was especially 
energetic. Their chief organiser, Mr. Arthur Hen¬ 
derson, M.P., is one of the most gifted party man¬ 
agers of this generation, and his achievement is 
an outstanding feature of political organisation in 
[286] 



HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS 

this country. The old parties also had time to re¬ 
pair their machinery; by the time the election was 
called their organisations were in full working 
order. The only party which had no organisation 
worth speaking of was the National Liberal party. 
The others were ready for the struggle. 

Nevertheless, when the election came in Novem¬ 
ber nearly 5,000,000 of the electors were not suf¬ 
ficiently interested in the contest to take the trouble 
to record their votes. It showed an improvement 
of 10 per cent, on the previous election, but there 
still remained nearly 20 per cent.—making allow¬ 
ance for death, sickness, removals, etc.—who stayed 
at home, and could not be persuaded by personal or 
public appeal or pressure exercised by three or four 
great organisations, to walk a few hundred yards 
out of their way in order to place a simple cross on 
the ballot paper that was awaiting them. 

The municipal elections tell a still more dismal 
story of apathy. But that is an old story. It was 
with difficulty that the old electorate, with all its 
long training, could be cajoled to visit the polling 
booths where the good government of the towns in 
which they breathed, lived, toiled, enjoyed them¬ 
selves, and rested was being determined. At their 

[287] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


worst, however, they made a better show than the 
newly enfranchised voters. 

How does the record compare with democracy in 
other lands ? France is no better. On the whole, I 
understand it is worse. The voting in the United 
States of America fluctuates according to the in¬ 
terest excited by the particular election. In this 
respect America does not differ from Britain. I 
cannot lay my hand on the percentage of the poll 
at the last presidential election, but I gather it was 
higher than ours at the general election. The Ger¬ 
mans polled at their last election 89 per cent, of 
their electorate; in Italy the percentage was much 
lower. 

With an unpolled and unticketed electorate of 
over 4,000,000 anything may happen. They have 
clearly no interest in the ordinary political conflicts 
that engage the minds of their fellow-citizens; 
otherwise, the excitement of two general elections 
would have roused them to such faint exhibition 
of partisanship as is implied in the choosing of a 
candidate out of the two or three who have taken 
the trouble to send along their pictures. 

But one day an issue may arise which will wake 
up the most lethargic. What will it be? And 
[288] 


HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS 


what view will they take of it when it comes ? And 
who will succeed in catching the eye of the slumber¬ 
ing multitude when it opens? Much depends on 
the answer to these questions. They may rally to 
the defence of property menaced by rapacious 
creeds. They may rush to the protection of their 
homes threatened by avaricious wealth. 

Even those who have already voted are liable 
to sudden and devastating changes of opinion. 
Witness Mitcham, Willesden, and Edgehill. These 
three seats were regarded as being amongst the 
safest in England, and were selected for that very 
reason. 

Amongst many disquieting factors there is one 
which ought to be dealt with ere another election 
arrive. Under the present system a minority of 
electors may usurp absolute dominion over the for¬ 
tunes of this kingdom for fully five years. 

This is one of the freaks of the group system. 
The present parliamentary majority has been 
elected by an aggregate vote which represents 
something a little better than one-fourth of the 
total electorate and one-third of those who recorded 
their votes. If Mitcham and Edgehill are a fore¬ 
taste of what is to happen at the ‘‘General/’ 

[289] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


Labour will be the lucky third. A similar turn¬ 
over of votes in every constituency would place 
them easily in that position. 

America has brought its vast electorate under 
what seems to us to be a perfect discipline. But 
in the process it has passed through much tribula¬ 
tion, including the furnace of a terrible civil war. 
Italy has been impelled to correct the working of 
democratic institutions by a display of force. Brit¬ 
ain may mobilise and drill its electoral forces with 
less trouble. But it has a Socialist party, which 
has grown by millions within less than a decade— 
and is still growing. This week its most eloquent 
member has proposed, in the House of Commons, 
a solemn motion for the abolition of private prop¬ 
erty. Deputies chosen by four and a quarter mil¬ 
lion of British electors will vote for this proposal, 
and if, four, years hence, they add another million 
and a half to their poll, they will be in a position to 
place that motion on the statute book. Their in¬ 
crease between 1918 and 1922 was greater than 
that. 


[ 290 ] 



XXV 


POLITICAL REALITIES 

A few weeks ago I predicted that the compar¬ 
ative calm which has prevailed in the political seas 
of Britain during the past few years was coming 
to an end. Recent parliamentary scenes leave no 
doubt that the prolonged political depression is to 
be followed by a period of storms—it may be hur¬ 
ricanes. 

No amount of organisation or propaganda can 
excite real feeling in an electorate over trivial and 
unreal issues. Why did the coalition of 1915 fall? 
And why did the Liberal party split in 1916? Who 
was responsible? Should the general election have 
taken place in 1918 or 1919? Ought open and de¬ 
clared opponents of the government of the day to 
have then received government support or at least 
government neutrality ? These are questions which 
agitate a few who are personally interested, but 
they leave the nation cold. 

The war was real enough. But the war was sup- 

[291] 


V-v 

V 


1 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

ported by men of all parties, and, therefore, pro¬ 
voked no political controversy. The minority 
which opposed it was negligible, and challenged no 
parliamentary discussion on the question. The 
treaty of peace was, on the whole, accepted by all 
parties when it was first submitted to Parliament. 
The leaders of the opposition parties in the Lords 
and Commons at the time of its presentation offered 
no serious criticism of its provisions. 

The legislation proposed by the Coalition, al¬ 
though in ordinary seasons much of it would have 
aroused angry passions, coming as it did after the 
war had exhausted emotion, passed with no more 
than a feeble murmur of protest. Take, for in¬ 
stance, such controversial topics as adult suffrage, 
the enfranchisement of women, the wholesale re¬ 
ductions in hours of labour, representative govern¬ 
ment in India, and notably the conferring upon Ire¬ 
land of a measure of Home Rule more complete 
than any proposed by Gladstone. 

Any one of these measures proposed before the 
war would have led to heated discussion through¬ 
out the land. The case of Ireland is perhaps the 
most significant of the changed temper of the na¬ 
tion immediately after the great war. The conflict 
[292] 


POLITICAL REALITIES 

over Irish Home Rule has now culminated in a 
treaty accepted by the nation as a whole and ac¬ 
quiesced in by the most violent amongst its oppo¬ 
nents. 

But fiercer political passions were stirred up by 
the struggle between parties over Ireland than by 
any political question of modern times. The causes 
underlying the conflict dealt with two of the most 
powerful motives which make the human heart 
throb—race and religion. There was the old feud 
between Saxon and Gael extending over at least 
seven centuries. It drenched the moors of Ire¬ 
land with the blood of both races before a keener 
edge was given to its hatreds by the introduction of 
an acute religious quarrel. 

After the Reformation the religious differences 
which rent Europe with fratricidal wars added 
fresh fury to the racial enmities which made poor 
Ireland a cauldron of perpetual strife. When Mr. 
Gladstone proposed to settle this raging tumult by 
wresting supremacy from a race which had been 
dominant in that island for 700 years and a faith 
which had been supreme there for 400 years and 
transferring it to the race and religion which all 
that time had been in a condition of servitude, and 

[293] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

when in order to attain his ends he had to secure 
the adhesion of men of the ruling blood and creed 
to his proposals, the passions raised were deeper and 
angrier than any witnessed in British politics for 
many a day. It led for the first time in the history 
of parliament to scenes of physical violence on the 
floor of the House. It shows what we may expect 
when there are genuine divisions of opinion which 
profoundly move masses of men and women in a 
democracy. Those who recall the tropical heat of 
parliamentary debates in 1893 naturally regard 
their voyage through the frigid proceedings of the 
last parliament as they would a sail through Arctic 
seas. That voyage is now over, and there are signs 
that the waters will soon be lashed into fury. 

For years political controversy between parties 
has been suspended in the presence of a common 
danger. Reaction was inevitable, and the greater 
the suppression the more violent the rebound. That 
does not, however, altogether account for the vis¬ 
ible omens of a coming struggle unprecedented in 
its gravity. Fundamental issues have been raised 
of such moment to millions that they cannot be set¬ 
tled without a struggle that will rock society. 

The scene enacted in the Commons a few days 
[294] 


POLITICAL REALITIES 


ago was by no means as exciting as that which some 
of us witnessed in 1893. But it gave me an uneasy 
feeling that the period of calm is definitely over, 
and that Parliament henceforth must expect gusts 
and gales—and worse. Emotions are once more 
welling up, and there are signs of a great stir com¬ 
ing in British politics. 

The cause is easily explained. The sense of ex¬ 
haustion is passing away, and issues containing a 
serious challenge to the privileges and rights of 
powerful classes in the community and vital to the 
interests of all classes have been raised by one of 
the great political parties that divide Britain. The 
momentous character of that challenge may be 
gathered from the terms of the motion submitted 
by Mr. Philip Snowden to the judgment of the 
House of Commons:— 

“That in view of the failure of the capitalist sys¬ 
tem to adequately utilise and organise natural re¬ 
sources and productive power, or to provide the 
necessary standard of life for vast numbers of the 
population, and believing that the cause of this 
failure lies in the private ownership and control of 
the means of production and distribution, this 

[295] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

House declares that legislative effort should be di¬ 
rected to the gradual supersession of the capitalist 
system by an industrial and social order based on 
the public ownership and democratic control of the 
instruments of production and distribution.” 

This motion will receive the full support of every 
member of the Labour party. A few men outside 
the Socialist party who have acquainted themselves 
with the publications of that party were quite pre¬ 
pared for this demand of a complete change in the 
organisation of society. And as they saw that 
party grow with startling rapidity they knew we 
should not have long to wait before these subversive 
ideas would be formulated in the House of Com¬ 
mons. Still, even for the students of Socialist liter¬ 
ature, the actual tabling of the resolution on be¬ 
half of the second largest party in the State came 
as a surprise and a shock. Too much credit was 
given to the restraining influence of the trade union 
section of the party. Sir Lynden Macassey, in his 
Informing book on “Labour Policy, False and 
True,” points out that it was in 1885 that the 
avowed advocates of this proposal for the abolition 
of private property and for the nationalisation of 
[296] 


POLITICAL REALITIES 

all the means of production and distribution first 
stood for Parliament. There were only two candi¬ 
dates standing on this platform, and they polled 
32 and 29 votes respectively. Last election the ag¬ 
gregate Socialist poll reached the imposing figure 
of 4,251,011 votes. The party that secured a ma¬ 
jority of members in the House of Commons only 
polled 5,457,871 votes. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald 
states categorically that he knows that the Inde¬ 
pendent Liberal members—exclusive of their lead¬ 
ers—favour nationalisation and the capital levy. If 
that be an accurate statement of the views of the 
maj ority of these gentlemen, and of those who elect 
them, nearly one-half the British electorate are al¬ 
ready prepared to assent to Socialism by easy stages 
—which is the purport of Mr. Philip Snowden’s 
motion. 

On that assumption we are on the eve of greater 
and more fundamental changes affecting the lives 
of every class and condition of men and women 
than have yet been seen in this country. Hence 
the new sense of struggle with which the political 
atmosphere is palpitating. Capitalism is to be ar¬ 
raigned before the Supreme Court of the Nation, 
condemned, sentenced, and ^executed by instal- 

[297] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

merits—Chinese fashion. The composition of that 
court is not to-day favourable to the prosecution. 
But who will be the judge after the next general 
election? It is customary in political controversy 
to state that the election which is for the moment 
impending will be the most epoch-making in his¬ 
tory. Without exaggeration, the next British elec¬ 
tion may well turn out to be so. The British people, 
with their inherited political instinct, are beginning 
to realise that grave decisions must then be taken. 
Hence the greater keenness shown by the voters at 
by-elections—hence the new interest taken by the 
public in the proceedings of Parliament. There is 
still a good deal of apathy and indifference. The 
average comfortable citizen is still inclined to think 
these Socialist schemes so crazy as to be impossible. 
They cannot believe that 21,000,000 of sane people 
can possibly contemplate giving their sanction to 
such fantasies. 

There are two cardinal facts which are constantly 
overlooked by the complacent. The men and 
women who have no property for the State to seize 
constitute an overwhelming maj ority of the electors 
of the country. The second fact to note is the great 
preponderance of the industrial population over 
[298] 




POLITICAL REALITIES 


the steadier and more stolid agricultural popula¬ 
tion. America, in spite of its gigantic manufactur¬ 
ing and distributing industries, still retains 60 per 
cent, of its population on the land. The same pro¬ 
portion of the French and Italian populations is 
agrarian. Barely 10 per cent, of the British work¬ 
ers are engaged in cultivating the soil. Most of 
our workers breathe and have their being in the 
crowded and excitable atmosphere of factories, 
workshops, and mines. The air is filled with germs 
of all kinds, and isolation in these thronging areas 
is impossible. Hence the rapidity with which the 
fever has spread. 

Can it be arrested? Nothing will be done until 
the danger is visible to every eye. To vary the 
metaphor, no one will believe in the flood until it 
is upon us. Trained weather prophets who fore¬ 
cast its coming will be laughed at or told they have 
a personal or party interest in ark building. It is 
an old tale—as old as the dawn of history. “As in 
the days before the flood, they were eating and 
drinking and knew not until the flood came and 
took them all away.” 

The trouble can only be averted in two ways. 
One is the systematic inculcation of sound doctrines 

[299] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

of ecomonic truth into the minds of the working 
people of this country. The second, and the more 
important, is the rooting out of the social evils 
which furnish the revolutionary with striking and 
indisputable object-lessons of the failure of the 
capitalistic system as an agent of human happiness. 
Without the latter the former effort will be futile. 
Arguments in favour of the existing order will be 
refuted by glaring and painful facts. Meanwhile, 
let the champions of that order take note of the 
efforts put forth by the Socialists to advertise their 
eagerness to redress the wrongs of the ex-service 
men and to soften the asperities of discipline for 
the soldier. The Socialist leaders have shrewdly 
taken note of the causes that produced the over¬ 
throw of their Italian brethren, and they mean to 
take such steps as will ensure that if Fascism comes 
in Britain it will be an ally, and not a foe. 

London, April 16th, 1923. 


[ 300 ] 


XXVI 


SHOULD WE MAKE PEACE WITH RUSSIA? 

I am frankly delighted that negotiations between 
Lord Curzon and the Soviet government seem to 
indicate a genuine desire on the part of both parties 
to establish a more satisfactory understanding be¬ 
tween this country and Russia. The Bolshevist 
episode, like all revolutionary terrors, has been at 
times a shrieking nightmare which has made the 
world shudder. It did render one supreme service 
to civilisation—it terrified democracy back into 
sanity just at the time when the nervous excita¬ 
bility that followed the war was bordering on men¬ 
tal instability. In our attitude towards the Soviet 
government we must, however, constantly bear in 
mind one consideration. What matters to us is not 
so much the Russian government as the people 
of Russia, and for the moment the Bolshevist ad¬ 
ministration represents the only medium for deal¬ 
ing with that mighty nation. As long as it re- 

[301] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

mains the only constituted authority in Russia, 
every act of hostility against it injures Russia. As 
we discovered in 1919, you cannot wage war against 
the government for the time being of a country 
without devastating the land and alienating its peo¬ 
ple. You cannot refuse to trade with it now with¬ 
out depriving its people of commodities—and espe¬ 
cially of equipments—essential to their well-being. 
It is the people, therefore, who would suffer, and 
it is the people who would ultimately resent that 
suffering. Governments come and go, but the na¬ 
tion goes on for ever. 

The Russian people deserve—especially at the 
hands of all the Allied nations—every sympathetic 

consideration we can extend to them. Not only be- 

* 

cause they have to endure the sway of a tyran¬ 
nical oligarchy imposing its will by ruthless vio¬ 
lence, but even more for the reasons that led to the 
establishment of that tyranny. If the fruit is bitter 
we must bear in mind how the tree came to be 
planted in the soil. It may sound like quoting an¬ 
cient history to revert to the events of eight or nine 
years ago, but no one can understand Russia, or 
do justice to its unhappy people, without recalling 
the incidents that led to the great catastrophe. 

[302] 




MAKE PEACE WITH RUSSIA? 


Those who denounce any dealings with the exist¬ 
ing order seem to have persuaded themselves that 
pre-revolutionary Russia was governed by a gentle 
and beneficent despotism which conferred the bless¬ 
ings of a tolerant and kindly fatherland upon a 
well-ruled household. In no particular is this a 
true picture of the ancien regime . The fortress of 
Peter and Paul was not erected, nor its dungeons 
dug, by the Bolshevists. Siberia was not set up as 
a penal settlement for political offenders for the 
first time—if at all—by the Bolshevists. In 1906 
alone 45,000 political offenders were deported to 
endure the severities of Siberia. Persecution of 
suspected religious leaders was not started by the 
Soviets. To them does not belong the discredit of 
initiating the methods of Pogromism. Under the 
“paternal” reign of the Tsars dissent from the Or¬ 
thodox faith was proscribed and persecuted, and the 
Jews were hunted like vermin. 

Let us not forget also that beyond all these cir¬ 
cumstances the revolution was rendered inevitable 
by the ineptitude and corruption of the old system, 
and especially by the terrible suffering and humilia¬ 
tion which that state of things inflicted on Russia 
in the Great War. 


[ 303 ] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

Any one who has read the Memoirs of an Am¬ 
bassador, by M. Paleologue, will find a complete 
explanation in its pages of the savage hatred with 
which the Russian revolutionaries view all those who 
were associated in any degree with the old order. 
He tells the story of how the gallant army found 
itself at the critical hour without ammunition, rifles, 
transport, and often without food. No braver or 
more devoted men ever fought for their country 
than the young peasants who made up the Russian 
armies of 1914-15-16. With little and often no 
artillery support, they faced without faltering the 
best-equipped heavy artillery in the world. They 
were mown down by shell fire and machine guns by 
the million. Their aggregate casualties up to Sep¬ 
tember, 1916, even according to the reluctant ad¬ 
missions of the Tsarist generals of the day, were 
five millions. In reality they were much heavier. 
Often they went into action with sticks, as the Rus¬ 
sian War Office had no rifles with which to arm 
them. They picked up as they advanced rifles 
dropped by fallen comrades. There is nothing in 
the war comparable to the trustful heroism of these 
poor peasants. We know now why there were no 
rifles, or shells, or wagons. The wholesale corrup- 
[304] 


MAKE PEACE WITH RUSSIA? 

tion of the regime has been exposed to the world by 
irrefutable documentary evidence. 

Here are a few extracts from M. Paleologue’s 
interesting book. One extract from his diary 
reads:— 

“The lack of ammunition means that the role of 
the artillery in battle is necessarily insignificant. 
The whole burden of the fighting falls on the in¬ 
fantry and the result is a ghastly expenditure of 
human life. A day or two ago one of the Grand 
Duke Sergius’s collaborators, Colonel Englehardt, 
said to Major Wehrlin, my second military attache: 
‘We’re paying for the crimes of our administration 
with the blood of our men.’ ” 

About the same date talking about the deplorable 
state of things, the Grand Duke Sergius, who was 
Inspector-General of Artillery, said to the French 
ambassador, “When I think that this exhibition of 
impotence is all that our aristocratic system has to 
show, it makes me want to be a Republican.” 

When a Grand Duke talked like that early in 
1915, what must a peasant soldier have thought by 
the spring of 1917, after many more millions of his 

[305] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

comrades had been slaughtered as a result of the 
same “exhibition of impotence.” 

It is no use pointing to the fact that our army 
was also short of ammunition at that date. The 
British army was a small army organised on the 
basis of a maximum expeditionary force of six 
divisions. The Russian army was a great conscript 
force organised on the basis of a hundred divisions 
in the field. 

I recollect well our own military reports from 
the Russian fronts. They provided much distress¬ 
ing reading. They filled you with compassion for 
the millions of gallant men who were the victims 
of corruption and stupidity in high places. I re¬ 
call one statement made to our general which be¬ 
trays the callous indifference with which men in 
authority seemed to treat the appalling .sacrifice 
of life amongst loyal soldiers who were facing death 
without a murmur, because the “Little Father” 
willed it. Whenever anxious inquiries were directed 
by our officer as to the gigantic losses in men which 
filled him with dismay as well as horror, the usual 
reply was, “Don’t worry yourself. Thank God, of 
men at all events we have enough.” An answer 
which sends a thrill of horror through you when you 
[ 306 ] 


MAKE PEACE WITH RUSSIA? 


read it. That is why at the end of two and a half 
years the patient men in the field at last mutinied. 
That is why their parents and brothers in the fields 
supported them. The “Little Father” had failed 
them, and his minions had betrayed them. It is a 
sordid and horrid tale of peculation, maladminis¬ 
tration, and cruel treachery. Millions of British 
and French money went in shameless and open 
bribery, whilst the soldiers in the field, for need 
of what the money could buy, were opposing bare 
breasts covering brave hearts to the most terrible 
artillery in the world. If the rest of the money had 
been well spent, what was left after providing for 
profuse graft would still have sufficed to save that 
gallant army from destruction. But unhappily no 
real interest was taken in anything beyond the 
amount and the payment of the pocket-money. 
That seemed to be the main purpose of the trans¬ 
action. Nothing was well managed except the in¬ 
evitable bribe. There were honourable and upright 
men who did their duty by their distracted and plun¬ 
dered country, but they were helpless in the torrent 
of corruption. 

No wonder a great Russian industrialist engaged 
in the ministry of war, in dwelling on the sad fail- 

[307] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


ure of tsarism and its probable results in June, 
1905, predicted a revolution with “ten years of the 
most frightful anarchy.” “We shall,” he added, 
“see the days of Pugatchef 1 again and perhaps 
worse”—a striking prophecy verified with appal¬ 
ling accuracy. 

It is not pleasant to recall these dreadful epi¬ 
sodes, which reveal the betrayal of a devotion faith¬ 
ful unto death. But this story is essential to the 
right appreciation of events. There is no savagery 
like that of a trustful people which finds that its 
trust was being imposed upon the whole time. Here 
the retribution has been hideous in all its aspects. 
But the provocation was also revolting from every 
point of view. To judge Russia fairly that must 
be taken into account. 

I think the government are, therefore, taking 
the right view of their responsibilities when through 
their foreign secretary they open negotiations with 
the representative of the Soviet government in this 
country. You can easily evoke resounding cheers 
amongst the thoughtless by declaring melodra- 

i Pugatchef was the Pretender who led a revolt of the peasants in 
the reign of Catherine and spread rapine and carnage through the 
provinces bordering the Volga and Ural. 

[308] 


MAKE PEACE WITH RUSSIA? 

matically that you will never “ shake hands with 
murder.” In practice this policy has always been 
a failure. Mr. Pitt in a famous passage declined 
to assent to that doctrine when he was attacked for 
trying to open negotiations with the “assassins” of 
the French Revolution. He was driven out of this 
calm and rational attitude by the inflammable rhe¬ 
toric of Burke, aided by the arrogance of the vic¬ 
torious revolutionaries. Nevertheless, the sequel 
proved he was right. French Bolshevism was not 
defeated by foreign armies, nor starved out by the 
British blockade. But it was driven into the arms 
of Napoleon, and Europe suffered bitterly for the 
folly of the hotheads on both sides. It would have 
been better for that generation had it listened to 
the wise counsel of William Pitt. 

If you decline to treat with Russia as long as 
its present rulers remain in power, then you ought 
to place Turkey in the same category. The mili¬ 
tary junta that governed Turkey has been guilty 
of atrocities at least as vile as any committed by 
the Bolshevists. But at Lausanne we ostentatiously 
stretched the friendly hand of Britain to the au¬ 
thors of the Armenian massacres. And France, 

[309] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


Italy—yes, and America also—tendered the same 
warm handshake. I am not criticising the offer 
of amity made as a condition of peace. We must 
make peace in the world, and you cannot do so if 
you put whole nations off your visiting list because 
of the misconduct of those who govern them. Once 
you begin you are not quite sure where it will end. 

In these cases the innocent suffer the most. A 
refusal to trade with Russia would not deprive the 
Soviet commissaries of a single necessity or com¬ 
fort of life. The Communists are quite strong 
enough to take care of themselves. But the peas¬ 
ants—who are not Communists—would continue to 
suffer, and their sufferings would increase as their 
reserves of clothing and other essentials became 
completely exhausted. And the people of this 
country who need the produce of Russia for their 
own use would also suffer to a certain extent. 
America can afford this exalted aloofness. She 
does not need the Russian grain and timber. She 
is an exporter of those commodities. But we can¬ 
not do as well without them, and we also sadly 
need Russian flax for our linen industries, which 
are languishing for the want of it. Last year there 
were quite considerable imports of Russian produce 
[310] 





MAKE PEACE WITH RUSSIA? 


into this country. This year owing to the prospects 
of an improved harvest these imports will be much 
larger. They are greatly needed here for our own 
consumption, and they pay for exports of machin¬ 
ery and textiles which the Russian on his part 
urgently requires. 

But beyond and above all these material con¬ 
siderations, the world needs peace. In the old days 
conveyancing attorneys in this country kept a prop¬ 
erty transaction going by interminable requisitions 
on the title of the other party. They exercised all 
their ingenuity and invoked the added ingenuity 
of trained counsel to probe for defects in the right 
of the vendor to deal. Those were leisurely days, 
and men could afford to dawdle. Even then these 
exercises often ended in ruinous litigation. To¬ 
day time presses and the atmosphere is dangerous 
for the plying of irritating interrogatories. It is 
time we made up our minds that the Soviets have 
come to stay, whether we like it or no, and that one 
or other of the formidable men who rule Russia to¬ 
day are likely to rule it for some time to come. The 
sooner we have the courage to recognise this fact, 
the sooner will real peace be established. 


[3H] 






XXVII 

PALESTINE AND THE JEWS 

“What’s his reason? I am a Jew.” 

The Merchant of Venice. 

Of all the bigotries that savage the human tem¬ 
per there is none so stupid as the anti-Semitic. It 
has no basis in reason; it is not rooted in faith; it 
aspires to no ideal; it is just one of those dank and 
unwholesome weeds that grow in the morass of 
racial hatred. How utterly devoid of reason it is 
may be gathered from the fact that it is almost en¬ 
tirely confined to nations who worship Jewish 
prophets and apostles, revere the national literature 
of the Hebrews as the only inspired message deliv¬ 
ered by the deity to mankind, and whose only hope 
of salvation rests on the precepts and promises of 
the great teachers of Judah. Yet in the sight of 
these fanatics the Jews of to-day can do nothing 
right. If they are rich they are birds of prey. If 
they are poor they are vermin. If they are in fa¬ 
vour of a war it is because they want to exploit the 
[312] 



PALESTINE AND THE JEWS 

bloody feuds of the Gentiles to their own profit. If 
they are anxious for peace they are either instinc¬ 
tive cowards or traitors. If they give generously— 
and there are no more liberal givers than the Jews 
—they are doing it for some selfish purpose of their 
own. If they do not give—then what could one ex¬ 
pect of a Jew but avarice? If labour is oppressed 
by great capital, the greed of the Jew is held re¬ 
sponsible. If labour revolts against capital—as it 
did in Russia—the Jew is blamed for that also. If 
he lives in a strange land he must be persecuted 
and pogrommed out of it. If he wants to go back 
to his own he must be prevented. Through the cen¬ 
turies in every land, whatever he does, or intends, 
or fails to do, he has been pursued by the echo of 
the brutal cry of the rabble of Jerusalem against 
the greatest of all Jews—“Crucify Him!” No 
good has ever come of nations that crucified Jews. 
It is poor and pusillanimous sport, lacking all the 
true qualities of manliness, and those who indulge in 
it would be the first to run away were there any 
element of danger in it. Jew-baiters are generally 
of the type that found good reasons for evading 
military service when their own country was in 
danger. 


[313] 




WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

The latest exhibition of this wretched indulgence 
is the agitation against settling poor Jews in the 
land their fathers made famous. Palestine under 
Jewish rule once maintained a population of 
5,000,000. Under the blighting rule of the Turk 
it barely supported a population of 700,000. The 
land flowing with milk and honey is now largely a 
stony and unsightly desert. To quote one of the 
ablest and most far-sighted business men of to-day, 
“It is a land of immense possibilities, in spite of 
the terrible neglect of its resources resulting from 
Turkish misrule. It is a glorious estate let down 
by centuries of neglect. The Turks cut down the 
forests and never troubled to replant them. They 
slaughtered the cattle and never troubled to replace 
them.” It is one of fhe peculiarities of the Jew- 
hunter that he adores the Turk. 

If Palestine is to be restored to a condition even 
approximate to its ancient prosperity, it must be 
by settling Jews on its soil. The condition to which 
the land has been reduced by centuries of the most 
devastating oppression in the world is such that 
restoration is only possible by a race that is pre¬ 
pared for sentimental reasons to make and endure 
sacrifices for the purpose. What is the history of 
[314] 


PALESTINE AND THE JEWS 

the Jewish settlement in Palestine? It did not be¬ 
gin with the Balfour Declaration. A century ago 
there were barely 10,000 Jews in the whole of Pales¬ 
tine. Before the war there were 100,000. The war 
considerably reduced these numbers, and immigra¬ 
tion since 1918 has barely filled up the gaps. At 
the present timorous rate of progress it will be 
many years before it reaches 200,000. Jewish set¬ 
tlement started practically seventy years ago, with 
Sir Moses Montefiore’s experiment in 1854 —an¬ 
other war year. The Sultan had good reasons for 
propitiating the Jews in that year, as the Allies had 
in 1917. So the Jewish resettlement of Pales¬ 
tine began. From that day onward it has pro¬ 
ceeded slowly but steadily. The land available was 
not of the best. Prejudices and fears had to be 
negotiated. Anything in the nature of wholesale 
expropriation of Arab cultivators, even for cash* 
had to be carefully avoided. The Jews were, there¬ 
fore, often driven to settle on barren sand dunes 
and malarial swamps. The result can best be given 
by quoting from an article written by Mrs. Fawcett, 
the famous woman leader. She visited Palestine 
in 1921 and again in 1922, and this is her account 
of the Jewish settlements: 


[315] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

“So far from the colonies and the colonists drain¬ 
ing the country of its resources they have created 
resources which were previously non-existent; they 
have planted and skilfully cultivated desert sands 
and converted them into fruitful vineyards and 
orange and lemon orchards; in other parts they have 
created valuable agricultural land out of what were 
previously dismal swamps producing nothing but 
malaria and other diseases. The colonists have not 
shrunk from the tremendous work and the heavy 
sacrifices required. Many of the early arrivals laid 
down their lives over their work; the survivors went 
on bravely, draining the swamps, planting eucalyp¬ 
tus trees by the hundred thousand so that at length 
the swamp became a fruitful garden, and the desert 
once more blossomed like the rose.” 

Everywhere the Jew cultivator produces heavier 
and richer crops than his Arab neighbour. He has 
introduced into Palestine more scientific methods of 
cultivation, and his example is producing a benefi¬ 
cent effect on the crude tillage of the Arab peasant. 
It will be long ere Canaan becomes once more a 
land flowing with milk and honey. The effects of 
the neglect and misrule of centuries cannot be ef- 
[316] 


PALESTINE AND THE JEWS 

faced by the issue of a declaration. The cutting 
down of the trees has left the soil unprotected 
against the heavy rains and the rocks which were 
once green with vineyards and olive groves have 
been swept bare. The terraces which ages of pa¬ 
tient industry built up have been destroyed by a 
few generations of Turkish stupidity. They can¬ 
not be restored in a single generation. Great irri¬ 
gation works must be constructed if settlement is 
to proceed on a satisfactory scale. Palestine pos¬ 
sesses in some respects advantages for the modern 
settler which to its ancient inhabitants were a detri¬ 
ment. Its one great river and its tributaries are 
rapid and have a great fall. For power this is ad¬ 
mirable. Whether for irrigation, or for the setting 
up of new industries, this gift of nature to Pales¬ 
tine is capable of exploitation only made possible by 
the scientific discoveries of the last century. The 
tableland of Judea has a rainfall which if caught in 
reservoirs at appropriate centres would make of the 
“desert of Judea” a garden. If this be done Arab 
and Jew alike share in the prosperity. 

There are few countries on earth which have 
made less of their possibilities. Take its special 
attractions for the tourist. I was amazed to find 

[317] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

that the visitors to Palestine in the whole course of 
a year only aggregate 15,000. It contains the most 
famous shrines in the world. Its history is of more 
absorbing interest to the richest peoples on earth, 
and is better taught to their children, than even 
that of their own country. Some of its smallest 
villages are better known to countless millions than 
many a prosperous modern city. Hundreds of 
thousands ought to be treading this sacred ground 
every year. Why are they not doing so? The an¬ 
swer is: Turkish misrule scared away the pilgrim. 
Those who went there came back disillusioned and 
disappointed. The modern “spies” on their return 
did not carry with them the luscious grapes of Escol 
to thrill the multitude with a desire to follow their 
example. They brought home depressing tales of 
squalor, discomfort, and exaction which dispelled 
the glamour and discouraged further pilgrimages. 
Settled government gives the Holy Land its first 
chance for 1900 years. But there is so much un¬ 
developed country demanding the attention of civi¬ 
lisation that Palestine will lose that chance unless 
it is made the special charge of some powerful in¬ 
fluence. The Jews alone can redeem it from the 
wilderness and restore its ancient glory. 

[318] 


PALESTINE AND THE JEWS 

In that trust there is no injustice to any other 
race. The Arabs have neither the means, the 
energy, nor the ambition to discharge this duty. 
The British Empire has too many burdens on its 
shoulders to carry this experiment through success¬ 
fully. The Jewish race with its genius, its resource¬ 
fulness, its tenacity, and not least its wealth, can 
alone perform this essential task. The Balfour 
Declaration is not an expropriating but an enabling 
clause. It is only a charter of equality for the Jews. 
Here are its terms: 

“His Majesty’s government view with favour the 
establishment in Palestine of a National Home for 
the Jewish people, and will use their best endeav¬ 
ours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it 
being clearly understood that nothing shall be done 
which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of 
existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or 
the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in 
any other country.” 

The declaration was subsequently endorsed and 
adopted by President Wilson and the French and 
Italian foreign ministers. 


[ 319 ] 


I 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

The Zionists ask for no more. It has been sug¬ 
gested by their enemies that they are seeking to 
establish a Jewish oligarchy in Palestine that will 
reduce the Arab inhabitant to a condition of servi¬ 
tude to a favoured Hebrew minority. The best an¬ 
swer to that charge is to be found in the memoran¬ 
dum submitted by the Zionist Association to the 
League of Nations. 

“The Jews demand no privilege, unless it be the 
privilege of rebuilding by their own efforts and 
sacrifices a land which, once the seat of a thriving 
and productive civilisation, has long been suffered 
to remain derelict. They expect no favoured treat¬ 
ment in the matter of political or religious rights. 
They assume, as a matter of course, that all the 
inhabitants of Palestine, be they Jews or non-Jews, 
will be in every respect on a footing of perfect 
equality. They seek no share in the government 
beyond that to which they may be entitled under 
the Constitution as citizens of the country. They 
solicit no favours. They ask, in short, no more than 
an assured opportunity of peacefully building up 
their national home by their own exertions and of 
succeeding on their merits.” 

[ 320 ] 


PALESTINE AND THE JEWS 


It is a modest request which these exiles from 
Zion propound to the nations. And surely it is just 
that it should be conceded, and if conceded then 
carried out in the way men of honour fulfil their 
bond. There are fourteen millions of Jews in the 
world. They belong to a race which for at least 
1900 years has been subjected to proscription, pil¬ 
lage, massacre, and the torments of endless derision 
—a race that has endured persecution, which for 
the variety of torture, physical, material and men¬ 
tal, inflicted on its victims, for the virulence and ma¬ 
lignity with which it has been sustained, for the 
length of time it has lasted, and more than all for 
the fortitude and patience with which it has been 
suffered, is without parallel in the history of any 
other people. Is it too much to ask that those 
amongst them whose sufferings are the worst shall 
be able to find refuge in the land their fathers made 
holy by the splendour of their genius, by the lofti¬ 
ness of their thoughts, by the consecration of their 
lives, and by the inspiration of their message to 
mankind ? 


[ 321 ] 


XXVIII 

THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE 1 

The vanquished have returned to their spiritual 
home at Angora throwing their fezzes in the air. 
The victors have returned with their tails v r ell 
between their legs. All tragedies have their scenes 
of comedy, and the Lausanne Conference is one 
of those amusing episodes interpolated by fate to 
relieve the poignancy of one of its greatest tragic 
pieces—the Turk and civilisation. 

The Turk may be a bad ruler, but he is the 
prince of anglers. The cunning and the patience 
with which he lands the most refractory fish once 
he has hooked it is beyond compare. What 
inimitable play we have witnessed for six months 
on the shores of Lake Leman! Once the fish 
seemed to have broken the tackle—that w r as when 
the first conference came to an abrupt end. It 


i London, July 25th, 1923. The Treaty of Lausanne, between the 
Allies and the Turks, was signed on July 24th, 1923. 



THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE 


simply meant, however, that the wily Oriental was 
giving out plenty of line. Time never worries 
him, he can sit and wait. He knew the moment 
would come when they would return with the hook 
w r ell in their gullets, and the play begin once more 
—the reeling in and the reeling out, the line some¬ 
times taut and strained but never snapping. Time 
and patience rewarded him. At last the huge 
tarpon are all lying beached on the banks—Britain, 
France, Italy, and the United States of America— 
high and dry, landed and helpless, without a swish 
left in their tails, glistening and gasping in the 
summer sun. 

It is little w r onder that Ismet had a smile on his 
face when all was over. Reports from Angora 
state that the peace is hailed there as a great Turk¬ 
ish triumph; and so it is. The Turk is truly a great 
fisherman. If he could govern as well as he angles, 
his would be the most formidable Empire in the 
world. Unfortunately he is the worst of rulers, 
hence the trouble—his own and that of those who 
unhappily have drawn him as governor in the lot¬ 
tery of life. 

The able correspondent of the Daily Telegraph 
at the Lausanne Conference has supplied us from 

[323] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

time to time with vivid pen pictures of the four 
greatest Powers of the world struggling in the toils 
of the squalid and broken remains of an Empire 
with an aggregate population equal to that of a 
couple of English counties that I could name. This 
is what he wrote about this conference, which con¬ 
stitutes one of the most humiliating incidents in 
the history of Western civilisation:— 

“The records of the present Conference present 
an even more marvellous series of concessions and 
surrenders. What was frayed before is threadbare 
now. The Allies have whittled away their own 
rights with a lavish hand in the cause of peace. 
They have also—and this is a graver matter, for 
which it seems they will have to give an account in 
the not distant future—gone back on their prom¬ 
ises to small races, which are none the less promises 
because the small races have not the power to en¬ 
force their performance. The figure that the 
European delegates are cutting in Lausanne, and 
the agents of the concessionnaires in Angora—all 
alike representatives of the West—has been ren¬ 
dered undignified as much by the manner as the 
matter of their worsting.” 

[324] 





THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE 

Since those distressing words were written the 
Powers have sunk yet deeper into the slough of 
humiliation. 

The Times correspondent wiring after the agree¬ 
ment writes in a strain of deep indignation at the 
blow inflicted on the prestige of the West by this 
extraordinary Treaty. In order to gauge the 
extent of the disaster to civilisation which this 
Treaty implies it is only necessary to give a 
short summary of the war aims of the Allies in 
Turkey. 

They were stated by Mr. Asquith with his usual 
succinctness and clarity in a speech which he de¬ 
livered when Prime Minister at the Guildhall on 
November 9th, 1914:— 

“It is not the Turkish people—it is the Ottoman 
Government that has drawn the sword, and which, 
I venture to predict, will perish by the sword. It 
is they and not we who have rung the death-knell 
of Ottoman dominion, not only in Europe but in 
Asia. With their disappearance will disappear as 
I, at least, hope and believe, the blight which for 
generations past has withered some of the fairest 
regions of the earth.” 


[ 325 ] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

In pursuance of the policy thus declared by the 
British Premier on behalf of the Allies a series of 
Agreements was entered into in the early months of 
1915 between France, Russia, and ourselves, by 
which the greater part of Turkey, with its con¬ 
glomerate population, was to be partitioned at the 
end of the War. Cilicia and Syria were allocated 
to France; Mesopotamia to Britain; Armenia and 
Constantinople to Russia. Palestine was to be 
placed under the joint control of Britain and 
France. Arabia was to be declared independent 
and a territory carved largely out of the desert— 
but including some famous cities of the East, 
Damascus, Homs and Aleppo—was to he consti¬ 
tuted into a new Arab State, partly under 
the protection of France and partly of Britain. 
Smyrna and its precincts were to be allotted to 
Greece if she joined her forces with those of 
the Allies in the war. The Straits were to be 
demilitarised and garrisoned. When Italy came 
into the war later on in 1915, it was stipulated that 
in the event of the partition of Turkey being car¬ 
ried out in pursuance of these agreements, terri¬ 
tories in Southern Anatolia should be assigned to 
Italy for development. 

[326] 



THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE 

What was the justification for breaking up the 
Turkish Empire? The portions to be cut out of 
Turkey have a population the majority of which 
is non-Turkish. Cicilia and Southern Anatolia 
might constitute a possible exception. In these 
territories massacres and misgovernment had per¬ 
haps succeeded at last in turning the balance in 
favour of the Turk. But in the main the distrib¬ 
uted regions were being cultivated and developed 
before the war by a population which was Western 
and not Turanian in its origin and outlook. This 
population represented the original inhabitants of 
the soil. 

The experiences, more especially of the past 
century, had demonstrated clearly that the Turk 
could no longer be entrusted with the property, 
the honour, or the lives of any Christian race within 
his dominions. Whole communities of Armenians 
had been massacred under circumstances of the 
most appalling cruelty in lands which their an¬ 
cestors had occupied since the dawn of history. 
And even after the war began 700,000 of these 
wretched people had been done to death by these 
savages, to whom, it must be remembered, the Great 
Powers so ostentatiously proffered the hand of 

[327] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

friendship at the first Lausanne conference. Even 
while the conference was in session, and the hand¬ 
shaking was going on, the Turks were torturing to 
death scores of thousands of young Greeks whom 
they deported into the interior. As “a precaution¬ 
ary measure” 150,000 Greeks of military age, of 
whom 30,000 were military prisoners, were last year 
driven inland to the mountains of Anatolia. On 
the way they were stripped of their clothes, and 
in this condition were herded across the icy moun¬ 
tains. It is not surprising that when an agree¬ 
ment was arrived at for the exchange of military 
prisoners, the Turks found the greatest difficulty 
in producing 11,000, and of the total 150,000 it is 
estimated that two-thirds perished. The Allied 
Powers had every good reason for determining, as 
they hoped for all time, that this barbarian should 
cease to shock the world by repeated exhibitions 
of savagery against helpless and unarmed people 
committed to his charge by a cruel fate. 

Apart from these atrocities the fact that great 
tracts of country, once the most fertile and popu¬ 
lous in the world, have been reduced by Turkish 
misrule and neglect to a condition which is indis¬ 
tinguishable from the wilderness, alone proves that 
[328] 


THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE 

the Turk is a blight and a curse wherever he pitches 
his tent, and that he ought in the interests of hu¬ 
manity to be treated as such. When a race, which 
has no title to its lands other than conquest, so mis¬ 
manages the territories it holds by violence as to 
deprive the world of an essential contribution to its 
well-being, the nations have a right—nay, a duty— 
to intervene in order to restore these devastated 
areas to civilisation. This same duty constitutes 
the reason and justification for the white settlers 
of America overriding the prior claims of the In¬ 
dian to the prairies and forests of the great 
West. 

On the shores of the Mediterranean are two 
races w T ith a surplus population of hard-working, 
intelligent cultivators, both of them belonging to 
countries which had themselves in the past been 
responsible for the government of the doomed lands 
covered by the Turkish Empire. Greece and Italy 
could claim that under their rule this vast terri¬ 
tory throve and prospered mightily. They now 
pour their overflow of population into lands far 
away from the motherland. Yet they are essen¬ 
tially Mediterranean peoples. The history of the 
Mediterranean will for ever be associated with their 

[329] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

achievements on its shores and its waters. The 
derelict wastes of Asia Minor need them. Valleys 
formerly crowded with tillers are now practically 
abandoned to the desert weeds. Irrigation has been 
destroyed or neglected. The Italian engineers are 
amongst the best in the world, and once they were 
introduced into Asia Minor would make cultivation 
again possible. There is plenty of scope in the 
deserts of Anatolia for both Italian and Greek. I 
was hoping for a peace that would set them both 
working. Had such a settlement been attained, 
a generation hence would have witnessed gardens 
thronging with happy men, women, and children, 
where now you have a wilderness across which men, 
women, and children are periodically hunted down 
into nameless horror. 

Yet another reason for the Allied decision was 
the bitter resentment that existed at the ingrati¬ 
tude displayed by the Turk towards Britain and 
France. They were naturally indignant that he 
should have joined their foes and slammed the gate 
of the Dardanelles in their face, and by that means 
complicated and prolonged their campaign and 
added enormously to their burdens, their losses, 
and their dangers. But he had not the thankful- 
[330] 


THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE 


ness even of the beast of prey in the legend towards 
the man who had cured his wounded limb. France 
and Britain had many a time extracted the thorn 
from the Turkish paw when he was limping along 
in impotent misery. They had done more. They 
had often saved the life of that Empire when the 
Russian bear was on the point of crushing it out 
of existence; and yet without provocation, without 
even a quarrel, he had betrayed them to their 
enemies. 

I have set out shortly what the war policy of the 
Allies was in reference to Turkey. The Treaty of 
Sevres considerably modified that policy in many 
vital aspects. By that Treaty, Constantinople, 
Cilicia, and Southern Anatolia were left to the 
Turk; Armenia was created into an independent 
State. There were many objections which could 
be raised to the original proposals of 1915, as it 
might be argued that they contemplated handing 
over in Cilicia and Southern Anatolia populations 
which in the main were Turkish and Moslem to 
Christian rulers. But in substance the modified 
plan of Sevres was sound, and if carried out would 
have conduced to the well-being of the millions 
to be liberated by its terms for ever from Turkish 

[331] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


rule. The world at large also would have benefited 
by the opportunity afforded to the industrious and 
intelligent Armenian and Greek populations of 
Turkey to renew the fertility of this land, once 
so bountiful in its gifts, thus enriching man’s 
store of good things. The barbarian invasion 
which withered that fertility was pushed back 
into the interior by the Treaty of Sevres. The 
Treaty of Lausanne has extended and perpetuated 
its sway from the Black Sea to the Mediter¬ 
ranean. I have explained the why and wherefore 
of Sevres. But why Lausanne? It is a long 
and painful story—a compound of shortsighted¬ 
ness, disloyalty, selfishness, and pusillanimity 
amongst nations and their statesmen. And more 
than all, Fate happened to be in its grimmest mood 
when dealing with this problem. The Russian 
Revolution eliminated that great country from 
the solution of the problem on the lines of pro¬ 
tection for the oppressed races of Turkey, and 
instead cast its might on the side of the oppressor. 
President Wilson was inclined to recommend that 
the United States of America should undertake 
the mandate for the Armenians. Had he suc¬ 
ceeded, what a different story would now have 
[332] 


THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE 


been told! What a different story the generations 
to come would also tell! But his health broke 
down at the vital moment and America would 
have none of his humanitarian schemes. Then 
came the departure of Sonnino from the Quirinal. 
With him went for a momentous while the old 
dreams of Italian colonisation, which in the past 
had done so much to spread civilisation in three 
continents. His successors were homelier men. 
I have still my doubts as to whether they served 
Italy best by the less adventurous and more 
domesticated policy they pursued. The future 
may decide that issue. But whatever the decision, 
the time for action passed away, and unless and 
until there is another break up in Turkey, the 
chance Italy has lost since 1919 will not be recov¬ 
ered. Will it ever come back? 

There followed the French check in Cilicia, and 
the negotiations at Angora with Mustapha 1 vernal, 
which were both single-handed and under-handed; 
for the Allies were not even informed of what was 
going on. This was a fatal step, for it broke up the 
unity which alone would enable the Western 
Powers to deal effectively with the Turk. This 
unity was never fully re-created. There can be no 

[333] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

reunion without confidence. There can be no trust 
in the West that is broken in the East. Much of 
the recent mischief in the Entente came from the 
clandestine negotiations at Angora. 

The last fatal change was the Greek revolt 
against Venizelos. It is often said that he is the 
greatest statesman thrown up by that race since 
Pericles. In all he has undertaken he has never 
failed his people. Disaster has always come to 
them when they refused to follow his guidance. 
When King Alexander was killed by a monkey, the 
Greeks were called upon to decide between Con¬ 
stantine and Venizelos. Their choice was ruinous 
to their country. No greater evil can befall a na¬ 
tion than to choose for its ruler a stubborn man with 
no common sense. Before the advent of Constan¬ 
tine, Greece, with no aid and little countenance 
from the Powers, was able to hold the forces of 
Mustapha Kemal easily at bay and even to drive 
him back into the fastnesses of Anatolia. In en¬ 
counter after encounter the Greek army, led by men 
chosen for their military gifts and sufficiently well 
equipped, inflicted defeat after defeat on the armies 

of Angora. But with Constantine came a change. 

' * 

In the Greek army, courtiers were substituted for 
[334] 


THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE 

soldiers in the high command. French, British and 
Italian public opinion, with the memory of Con¬ 
stantine’s treachery during the war still fresh in 
their minds, altered their attitude towards the 
Greeks who had elevated him to the throne in defi¬ 
ance of Allied sentiment. Indifferent Powers be¬ 
came hostile; hostile Powers became active. The 
final catastrophe began with the heroic but foolish 
march of the Greek army into the defiles of Asia 
Minor, followed by the inevitable retreat. It was 
consummated when Constantine for dynastic rea¬ 
sons appointed to the command of the troops in 
Asia Minor a crazy general whose mental condition 
had been under medical review. The Greeks fight 
valiantly when well led, but like the French, once 
they know they are not well led, confidence goes, 
and with confidence courage. Before the Kemalist 
attack reached their lines the Greek army was 
beaten and in full retreat. With attack came panic, 
with panic the complete destruction of what was 
once a fine army. With the disappearance of that 
army vanished the last hope for the salvation of 
Anatolia. That the history of the East, and prob¬ 
ably the West, should have been changed by the 
bite of a monkey is just another grimace of the 

[335] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


comic spirit which bursts now and again into the 
pages of every great tragedy. 

All that could be done afterwards was to save the 
remnants of a great policy. Western civilisation 
put up its last fight against the return of savagery 
into Europe, when in September and October of 
last year British soldiers and sailors, deserted by al¬ 
lies and associates alike, saved Constantinople from 
hideous carnage. The Pact of Mudania was not 
Sevres, but it certainly was better than Lausanne. 
From Sevres to Mudania was a retreat. From 
Mudania to Lausanne is a rout. 

What next? Lausanne is not a terminus, it is 
only a milestone. Where is the next? No one 
claims that this Treaty is peace with honour. It is 
not even peace. If one were dealing with a regen¬ 
erated Turk, there might be hope. But the burn¬ 
ing of Smyrna, and the cold-blooded murders of 
tens of thousands of young Greeks in the interior, 
prove that the Turk is still unchanged. To quote 
again from the correspondent of The Times at Lau¬ 
sanne :— 


“All such evidence as can be obtained here con¬ 
firms the belief that the new Turk is but the old, 
[ 336 ] 


THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE 

and that the coming era of enlightenment and 
brotherly love in Turkey, for which it is the correct 
thing officially to hope, will be from the foreigners’ 
point of view at best a humiliating, and at worst a 
bloody, chaos.” 

The amazing legend that the Turk is a gentleman 
is dying hard. That legend has saved him many a 
time when he was on the brink of destruction. It 
came to his aid in October last when the policy of 
this country was changed by the revolt of the Turco- 
phile against the Coalition. The Turk has mas¬ 
sacred hundreds of thousands of Armenians, and 
dishonoured myriads of Christian women who 
trusted to his protection. Nevertheless the Turk 
is a gentleman! By his indolence, his shiftiness, his 
stupidity, and his wantonness, he has reduced a 
garden to a desert. What better proof can there 
be that he is a real gentleman? For a German 
bribe he sold the friends who had repeatedly saved 
his wretched life. All the same, what a gentleman 
he is! He treated British prisoners with a barbar¬ 
ous neglect that killed them off in hundreds. Still, 
he is such a gentleman! He plunders, he slays, and 
outrages those who are unable to defend themselves. 

[337] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

He misgoverns, cheats, lies, and betrays. For all 
that, the Turk is a gentleman! So an agitation was 
engineered with perverse tenacity to save this fine 
old Oriental gentleman from the plebeian hands 
that sought his destruction. Hence the black 
Treaty of Lausanne. 
fjondon, July 25th, 1923 


[ 338 ] 


XXIX 


THE SIGNING OF THE IRISH TREATY 

When a few days ago I was half-way through 
the speech I delivered in the House of Commons 
on the land system the faithful Commons were sum¬ 
moned in the manner consecrated by centuries of 
tradition to the bar of the House of Lords to hear 
the royal assent being given to the bill for the con¬ 
stitution of the Irish Free State. Notwithstanding 
a natural preoccupation with my interrupted speech 
two scenes came to my mind during my short jour¬ 
ney to and from the upper chamber. 

The first was the spectacle of a crowded House 
of Commons nearly thirty years ago. When the 
doors were opened for prayers there was the un¬ 
wonted sight of a throng of hustling M.P.’s press¬ 
ing through the swing doors to secure seats. I 
need hardly say this was not the symptom or the 
outcome of any religious revival amongst our legis¬ 
lators. It was entirely due to the ancient custom 
that confers upon a member occupying a seat at 

[339] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

prayers the unchallengeable right to that seat for 
the rest of the sitting. Rows of chairs were arrayed 
on the floor of the House. That was an innovation 
never since followed. What was it all about? 
There sat in the middle of the Treasury bench hud¬ 
dled up and almost hidden by more stalwart and up¬ 
right figures an old man of 83 years, to all ap¬ 
pearances in the last stage of physical decrepitude 
and mental lassitude. His name was William 
Ewart Gladstone, the greatest parliamentary gladi¬ 
ator of all time. The lifelong champion of op¬ 
pressed nationalities was to-day to inaugurate his 
final effort to give freedom to the Irish race trod¬ 
den for centuries by ruthless force. The last rem¬ 
nant of his strength was to be consecrated to the 
achievement of Irish liberty, and hundreds of eager 
legislators to whom Peel and Russell, Palmerston 
and Disraeli were but historical names, were avid 
competitors for seats from which they could better 
listen to a man who had sat in governments with 
the first three and crossed swords with the fourth. 
It was a memorable sight. 

The preliminary questions which precede all par¬ 
liamentary business were by common consent post¬ 
poned, and a deep and solemn silence thrilling with 
[340] 


SIGNING OF THE IRISH TREATY 

expectancy fell upon the humming assembly as Mr. 
Speaker Peel in his sonorous voice called out “the 
Prime Minister.” The inert heap which was the 
centre of all gaze sprang to the table an erect and 
alert figure. The decrepitude was cast off like a 
cloak—the lassitude vanished as by a magician’s 
wand, the shoulders were thrown back, the chest 
was thrown forward, and in deep, ringing tones full 
of music and force the proposed new Irish charter 
was expounded for three unwearying hours by the 
transfigured octogenarian rejuvenated by the magic 
of an inspired soul. I had a seat just opposite the 
great orator. I was one of the multitude who on 
that occasion listened with marvel to that feat of 
intellectual command and physical endurance. It 
was more than that. It was an unrivalled display 
of moral courage, rare in political conflict. Mr. 
Gladstone had only just emerged out of a general 
election where, in spite of six years of his eloquent 
advocacy, the voice of Great Britain had declared 
emphatically against his Irish policy, and the poor 
parliamentary majority at his back was made up 
out of the preponderating Irish vote in favour of 
Home Rule. He was confronted with the most 
formidable parliamentary opposition ever ranged 

[341] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

against a minister, redoubtable in debating quality, 
still more redoubtable in its hold on British pride. 
He was eighty-three years of age, but he never 
quailed, and through the sultry summer months of 
1893 he fought night by night with mighty strokes 
the battle of Irish emancipation. He did not live 
to carry the cause through to victory, but he planted 
the banner so firmly in the soil that no assault could 
succeed in tearing it down, and on the day when I 
stood with Mr. Bonar Law at the bar of the House 
of Lords I saw this banner flourished in triumph 
from the steps of the throne by a Unionist Lord 
Chancellor. That was the first memory that flashed 
through my brain. 

The next was of a dreary December night just 
one year ago when on one side of the Cabinet table 
in 10 Downing Street sat four representatives of 
Great Britain and on the other five Irish leaders. 
It was the famous room wherein British cabinets 
have for generations forged their Irish policies. 
Coercion and concession alike issued from that 
chamber. Pitt’s Act of Union was discussed there, 
and so were Gladstone’s Home Rule bills, the de¬ 
cision to use British soldiers to throw Irish tenants 
out of their houses with battering ram and torch 
[342] 


SIGNING OF THE IRISH TREATY 


and equally the bill which made every Irish tenant 
lord and master of his home at the expense of the 
British treasury—all issued forth from this simple 
and unadorned council chamber. And now came 
the final treaty of peace. Would it be signed? It 
was an anxious moment charged with destiny for 
the two great races who confronted each other at 
that green table. 

The British representatives who were associated 
with me on the occasion were Mr. Austen Chamber- 
lain; [I recall now how he sat by the side of his 
doughty father, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, in 1893, 
during the famous nightly duel between him and 
Mr. Gladstone. How strangely little thirty ardu¬ 
ous years have changed his personal appearance!] 
Lord Birkenhead, who, in 1893 was carving for 
himself a brilliant career as a student at Oxford 
and as a debater in the Union; Mr. Winston 
Churchill who was then a cadet at Sandhurst whilst 
his father was engaged in the last great parliamen¬ 
tary struggle of his dazzling but tragic career; Sir 
Gordon Hewart, now Lord Hewart, the man who 
has risen on the pinions of a powerful intelligence 
to the height of Lord Chief Justice of England. 
My recollection is that the other two British dele- 

[343] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


gates—Sir Laming Worthington-Evans and Sir 
Hamar Greenwood—were stricken with illness and 
were unable to be present. After weeks of close in¬ 
vestigation the climax of decision had been reached. 
Britain had gone to the limit of concession. No 
British statesman could have faced any assembly 
of his countrymen had he appended his signature 
to a convention that placed Ireland outside that 
fraternity of free nations known as the British Em¬ 
pire or freed her from that bond of union which is 
represented by a common fealty to the sovereign. 
It is not easy to interpret the potency of this in¬ 
visible bond to those who are brought up to vener¬ 
ate other systems. It is nevertheless invincible. 
Would the Irish leaders have the courage to make 
peace on the only conditions under w r hich peace was 
attainable—liberty within the Empire? ’ 

Opposite me sat a dark, short, but sturdy figure 
with the face of a thinker. That was Mr. Arthur 
Griffith, the most un-Irish leader that ever led Ire- 
land, quiet to the point of gentleness, reserved al¬ 
most to the point of appearing saturnine. A man 
of laconic utterance, he answered in monosyllables 
where most men would have considered an oratori¬ 
cal deliverance to be demanded by the dignity of 
[ 344 ] 




SIGNING OF THE IRISH TREATY 

the occasion. But we found in our few weeks’ ac¬ 
quaintance that his yea was yea and his nay meant 
nay. He led the Irish deputation. He was asked 
whether he would sign. In his abrupt, staccato 
manner he replied, “Speaking on my own behalf I 
mean to sign.” 

By his side sat a handsome young Irishman. No 
one could mistake his nationality. He was Irish 
through and through, in every respect a contrast to 
his taciturn neighbour. Vivacious, buoyant, highly 
strung, gay, impulsive, but passing readily from 
gaiety to grimness and back again to gaiety, full of 
fascination and charm—but also of dangerous fire. 
That was Michael Collins, one of the most coura¬ 
geous leaders ever produced by a valiant race. 
Nevertheless he hesitated painfully when the quiet 
and gentle little figure on his left had taken his re¬ 
solve. Both saw the shadow of doom clouding over 
that fateful paper—their own doom. They knew 
that the pen which affixed their signature at the 
same moment signed their death-warrant. The lit¬ 
tle man saw beyond his own fall Ireland rising out 
of her troubles a free nation and that sufficed for 
him. Michael Collins was not appalled by the 
spectre of death, but he had the Irishman’s fear of 

[ 345 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

encountering that charge which comes so readily to 
the lips of the oppressed—that*of having succumbed 
to alien wile and betrayed their country. Patriots 
who cheerfully face the tyrant’s steel lose their 
nerve before that dread accusation. It was the first 
time Michael Collins ever showed fear. It was also 
the last. I knew the reason why he halted, although 
he never uttered a word which revealed his mind, 
and I addressed my appeal to an effort to demon¬ 
strate how the treaty gave Ireland more than 
Daniel O’Connell and Parnell had ever hoped for, 
and how his countiymen would be ever grateful to 
him not only for the courage which won such an of¬ 
fer, but for the wisdom that accepted it. 

He asked for a few hours to consider, promising 
a reply bypiine o’clock. Nine passed, but the Irish 
leaders did not return. Ten. Eleven, and they 
were not yet back. We had doubts as to whether 
we should see them again. Then came a message 
from the secretary of the Irish delegation that they 
were on their way to Downing Street. When they 
marched in it was clear from their faces that they 
had come to a great decision after a prolonged 
struggle. But there were still difficulties to over¬ 
come—they were, however, difficulties not of prin¬ 
ts] 


SIGNING OF THE IRISH TREATY 


ciple but of detail. These were discussed in a busi¬ 
nesslike way, and sooh after one o’clock in the 
morning the treaty was complete. A friendly chat 
full of cheerful goodwill occupied the time whilst 
the stenographers were engaged in copying the 
draft so disfigured with the corrections, interpola¬ 
tions and additions, each of which represented so 
many hours of hammering discussion. 

Outside in the lobby sat a man who had used all 
the resources of an ingenious and well-trained mind 
backed by a tenacious will to wreck every endeavour 
to reach agreement—Mr. Erskine Childers, a man 
whose slight figure, whose kindly, refined and in¬ 
tellectual countenance, whose calm and courteous 
demeanour offered no clue to the fierce passions 
which raged inside his breast. At every crucial 
point in the negotiations he played a sinister part. 
He was clearly Mr. de Yalera’s emissary, and faith¬ 
fully did he fulfil the trust reposed in him by that 
visionary. Eveiy draft that emanated from his 
pen—and all the first drafts were written by him— 
challenged every fundamental position to which the 
British delegates were irrevocably committed. He 
was one of those men who by temperament are in¬ 
capable of compromise. Brave and resolute he un- 

[ 347 ] 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

doubtedly was, but unhappily for himself he was 
also rigid and fanatical. When we walked out of 
the room where we had sat for hours together, worn 
with tense and anxious labour, but all happy that 
our great task of reconciliation had been achieved, 
we met Mr. Erskine Childers outside sullen with 
disappointment and compressed wrath at what he 
conceived to be the surrender of principles he had 
fought for. 

I never saw him after that morning. Michael 
Collins and Arthur Griffith I met repeatedly after 
the signature of the treaty, to discuss the many ob¬ 
stacles that surged up in the way of its execution, 
and I acquired for both a great affection. Poor 
Collins was shot by one of his own countrymen on 
a bleak Irish roadside, whilst he was engaged in re¬ 
storing to the country he had loved so well the order 
and good government which alone enables nations 
to enjoy the blessings of freedom. Arthur Griffith 
died worn out by anxiety and toil in the cause he 
had done so much to carry to the summit of victory. 
Erskine Childers was shot at dawn for rebellion 
against the liberties he had helped to win. 

Truly the path of Irish freedom right up to the 
goal is paved with tragedy. But the bloodstained 
[ 348 ] 


SIGNING OF THE IRISH TREATY 

wilderness is almost through, the verdant plains of 
freedom are stretched before the eyes of this tor¬ 
tured nation. Ireland will soon honour the name 
of the Green Isle, and I am proud to have had a 
hand in erecting the pillar which will for ever mark 
the boundary between the squalor of the past and 
the hope of the future. 

London, December 16th, 1922. 


[ 349 ] 


XXX 


PROHIBITION 

Four years ago the United States of America, 
by a two-thirds majority, voted prohibition of the 
sale of alcoholic liquors. The British House of 
Commons have just voted down a bill for the same 
purpose by a majority of 236 to 14. America treats 
prohibition as one of its greatest moral triumphs. 
Britain treats it as a joke. 

What accounts for this remarkable disparity in 
the attitude of the two great English-speaking 
communities towards one of the most baffling and 
elusive problems civilisation has to deal with? It 
cannot be a fundamental difference in temperament 
or in moral outlook. The men who engineered pro¬ 
hibition in America are of our own race and kind, 
bred in the Puritan traditions that came originally 
from our shores. 

If the evils of excessive drinking had been more 
apparent in America than in Britain I could under¬ 
stand the States of the Union deciding to take 
[350] 


PROHIBITION 

more drastic action than has been thought necessary 
in our country. But the facts are exactly the re¬ 
verse. The consumption of alcohol in the United 
Kingdom some years before the war per head of the 
population was higher than that of the United 
States. The poverty, disease, and squalor caused 
by alcohol was much greater in Britain than in 
America. 

What, then, accounts for the readiness of Auner- 
ica to forbid the sale and the reluctance of Britain 
even seriously to restrict it? 

I would not care to dogmatise on the subject, 
but I will hazard two or three possible explana¬ 
tions. 

I set aside the suggestion that property owners 
are frightened by the sequel to prohibition in Rus¬ 
sia. I have heard it argued that the prohibition 
ukase of the tsar was responsible for the Russian 
revolution. That is probably true, for a people 
stupefied by alcohol will stand anything. The in¬ 
efficiency and corruption of the tsarist regime was 
so appalling that no sober nation could have tol¬ 
erated it without rebellion for a single year, and 
when the fumes of vodka ceased to muddle and 
blind the rtioujik , he rebelled against the autocracy 

[351] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


that had betrayed his country into disaster. The 
Russian experiment in drink, therefore, contains 
no warning against prohibition, except a very lim¬ 
ited one, that those who wish to misrule a country 
in safety must first of all drench it with alcohol. 

There is, of course, the ready explanation that 
old countries are very conservative, and do not 
take kindly to change. Their joints are stiff with 
age, and they creak along well-worn paths slowly 
and painfully, but they lack the suppleness of limb 
that tempts younger communities to sprint across 
untrodden country. That is the argument. I am 
afraid this explanation will not hold. Old countries 
when thoroughly moved can leap like the hart. The 
French Revolution demonstrated how vigorously 
one of the oldest nations of Europe could tear along 
unbroken tracks when impelled by a new passion. 
And I saw Britain spring to arms in 1914, when 
five millions of men joined the colours without the 
lash of compulsion to stir their blood. England 
renewed her youth, and her movements had the 
energy, the audacity, and the endurance of a people 
untired by a march of centuries. This people, if 
stirred by a call which reaches its heart or con¬ 
science, is capable of action as bold as that which 
[352] 


PROHIBITION 

wrested Magna Charta out of a despot in the 
twelfth century, overthrew an ancient religion in 
the fifteenth century, led a king to the scaffold in 
the seventeenth century, or challenged the greatest 
military empires in the world in the sixteenth, the 
nineteenth, and the twentieth centuries. And if 
they were convinced that the liquor traffic must be 
destroyed, they would execute it with as little com¬ 
punction or hesitation as they displayed in suppres¬ 
sing the mass or in decapitating Charles I. 

At the present moment the British people are not 
in the least persuaded that the evils of alcohol for 
a minority of the population cannot be dealt with 
effectively without resorting to the very drastic ex¬ 
pedient of forbidding its consumption by the ma¬ 
jority who use it in moderation. Are they likely 
to be convinced? That depends on the failure or 
success of all other expedients to exterminate the 
evil of alcoholism. 

That brings me to another explanation. America 
reached prohibition by the path of experiment. 
The federal system lent itself to the trial of every 
form of remedy, including prohibition. For well 
over half a century you have had almost every form 
of temperance expedient ever suggested in actual 

[353] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

working in some State or other of the American 
republic. 

When I was a lad I heard debates and addresses 
in Welsh about the comparative merits of the 
“Maine Law” and high license. High license, re¬ 
duction of licenses, local option, prohibition, have 
all been tried. They have all been in operation 
quite long enough to enable the American public 
to form a judgment on their merits. Statistical 
results over long periods constitute a reliable basis 
for inference. American federalism furnished the 
opportunity, and the States took full advantage of 
it. Hence the prohibition law. 

To the practical man the figures in the prohibi¬ 
tion States looked attractive from a business point 
of view. He hesitated, but the moral wave that 
swept over America carried him over the bar. But 
without the experience at his door I doubt whether 
the American business man would have assented to 
prohibition. 

The British constitution does not lend itself to 
these valuable experiments. Otherwise, London 
might have tried one experiment, Lancashire an¬ 
other, Yorkshire a third, Scotland a fourth, and 
Wales a fifth. The whole legislative power of the 
[354] 


PROHIBITION 


United Kingdom was until quite recently vested in 
the imperial Parliament. Ireland has now a legis¬ 
lature of its own. In theory, what suited one part 
of the kingdom must do for the whole, and what did 
not suit the more populous parts could not be per¬ 
mitted to others. 

As far as Scotland, Ireland, and Wales are con¬ 
cerned, there was in practice a certain relaxation 
of this rule. But as far as the liquor laws went, 
any serious alteration in any part of the kingdom 
was difficult to secure if it offended the prejudices 
or damaged the interests of the rest. It took years 
to get it through Parliament even in a mutilated 
condition. 

There was no real freedom of experiment. The 
Scottish local veto act is a compromise modified to 
suit English sentiment. Even as it is, it took thirty 
years of Scottish insistence to carry. Wales has 
been unable to secure local option, although it has 
been demanded by four-fifths of its representatives 
for over a generation. We have, therefore, in this 
country been denied the practical experience which 
has guided America to so dramatic a conclusion. 

In the absence of such experience it has been 
found impossible to educate and organise public 

[355] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


opinion throughout Britain to the point of con¬ 
centrating attention and pressure on this one issue. 
Other issues always cut across and jam the current. 

You cannot secure unanimity of action on tem¬ 
perance reform even amongst the religious forces. 
If they were united in their demand, and prepared 
to enforce it at elections, nothing could resist their 
power. Between elections they seem agreed in 
their policy; but no sooner does the party bugle 
sound than they all fall into rank in opposite armies, 
and the temperance banner is hurriedly packed into 
the cupboard for use after the polls have been de¬ 
clared. It is then once more brought out to wave 
over the tabernacle, and its wrinkles are straight¬ 
ened out in the breeze. 

I have seen the fiercest champions of local op¬ 
tion supporting brewers at elections because they 
were the official opponents of Irish Home Rule in 
the contest. I remember being told by an eminent 
Scottish divine, who was a strong temperance ad¬ 
vocate, but who had hitherto supported anti-tem¬ 
perance candidates because of his inveterate opposi¬ 
tion to Gladstone’s Home Rule, that, unless his 
party carried a measure of local option for Scotland 
soon, he would have to abandon them, home rule or 
[356] 


PROHIBITION 

no home rule. He died without redeeming his 
promise. The time never came for him. The Irish 
issue dominated elections for nearly a generation. 
Free trade played a great part also. 

If the exigencies of party conflict had permitted 
the same consistent propaganda work, extending 
over the same number of years, to be devoted to the 
drink problem as was given to the wrongs of Ire¬ 
land or free trade, no doubt public opinion could 
have been educated up to the point of supporting 
drastic reform. But this has not been found prac¬ 
ticable by political parties owing to the distraction 
of other issues. 

This is the main reason why British opinion is 
so far behind American opinion on the temperance 
question. In America the battle of sobriety was 
fought on the State platform, whilst the national 
platform was left free for other conflicts. 

The war, however, enabled the British govern¬ 
ment to effect reforms which have materially re¬ 
duced the consumption of alcohol in this kingdom. 
These results have been achieved by an enormous 
increase in the taxation of alcoholic liquors, and by 
a considerable reduction in the hours of sale. The 
taxation of beer was raised from £13,000,000 in 

[357] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


1913 to £123,000,000 in 1921. The duty on spirits 
in 1913 yielded £22,000,000, in 1921 it gave the 
revenue £71,000,000. 

One of the effects has been an appreciable reduc¬ 
tion in the alcoholic strength of the beverage sold. 
The hours of sale in the morning and afternoon 
have been curtailed appreciably. By this measure 
the workman is prevented from starting his day by 
drinking alcohol, and the afternoon break prevents 
the drinker from soddening all day. 

The effect of these combined measures has been 
highly beneficial. The quantity of beer sold fell 
from 34,152,739 barrels of 36 gallons at standard 
gravity of 10.55 in 1913, to 23,885,472 standard 
barrels in 1921. Spirits fell from 30,736,088 proof 
gallons in 1913 to 20,162,395 in 1921. These fig¬ 
ures represent a remarkable and almost sensa¬ 
tional reduction in the quantity of alcohol consumed 
by the population. Convictions for drunkenness 
fell from 188,877 in 1913 to 77,789 in 1921. Deaths 
from alcoholic diseases were more than halved dur¬ 
ing the same period. This is the most distinct ad¬ 
vance in the direction of effective temperance re¬ 
form hitherto taken by the British Parliament, and 
the effect is striking in its encouragement. 

[358] 


PROHIBITION 

It would be a serious national misfortune if the 
admirable results attained by these war measures 
were lost by relaxations. Most of the pressure 
exerted upon Parliament has up to the present been 
in the direction of easing the grip of the state on 
the traffic. Most candidates in all parties at the 
last election were forced to pledge themselves to 
support reduction in the beer duty. Clubs, even 
more than “pubs,” have urged extensions in drink¬ 
ing hours. The beer duty has already been reduced. 
It is anticipated that the reduction will have the 
effect of increasing consumption. This is regret¬ 
table, for it means so much reclaimed land once 
more sinking into the malarial swamp. 

There is one consolation, however, that the 
women will claim the next turn in reduction of 
taxation. Sugar and tea will then provide effective 
barriers in the way of a further cheapening of alco¬ 
holic liquors just yet. But all this is a long, long 
way off prohibition. A majority of 20 to 1 against 
Mr. Scrymgeour’s prohibition bill, and a majority 
of 4 to 1 in favour of cheaper beer—both recorded 
in the same parliamentary week—is not encour¬ 
aging to those who would suppress alcohol in 
Britain. 


[ 359 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

Temperance reformers here are, therefore, watch¬ 
ing the progress of America’s bold bid for sobriety 
with hopeful, if anxious, eyes, and with longing 
hearts. What Britain does next will depend en¬ 
tirely on the success or failure of what America is 
doing now. 


[ 360 ] 


XXXI 


UNOFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF * 4 OFFICIAL” 

INFORMATION 

A storm is working up over the publication by 
public servants of information which came into their 
possession in the course of their official careers. 
The immediate occasion is Mr. Winston Churchill’s 
story of the war. Angry questions are being asked 
in parliament, and it is publicly announced that 
the Cabinet have appointed a committee of its mem¬ 
bers to consider the whole problem. 

It is rather late in the day to make all this fuss 
about the publication of war documents, for gen¬ 
erals, admirals, and ministers in all lands, including 
ours, have during the last three years been inun¬ 
dating the European and American public with a 
flood of reminiscences, explanations, criticisms, at¬ 
tacks and defences on the conduct of operations, 
either of the Great War or the Great Peace, in 
which they were engaged. Warriors on land and 
on sea have displayed an unprecedented eagerness 

[361] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


to inform the public as to their own share in the 
great victory, and as to how much more brilliant 
that share would have been but for the wronghead¬ 
edness or stupidity of some collaborator. Like 
Julius Caesar, they mean to live in history not 
merely through their battles, but also through their 
commentaries upon them. On the other hand, 
statesmen have been engaged in disclaiming re¬ 
sponsibility for particular parts of the Treaty of 
Versailles, and where blame has been attached to 
them, either by opponents or supporters, for the 
form in which those parts were cast, they have 
striven hard to prove that it was attributable to 
pressure which they were unable to resist from 
other actors in the drama. In each case liiglily con¬ 
fidential information is disclosed, secret documents 
are used, cabinet and council proceedings are pub¬ 
lished, without the slightest regard to precedent. 
One disclosure has led to another, one revelation has 
rendered another inevitable. 

A general, admiral or minister criticises on the 
strength of half-disclosed minutes or documents 
some other public functionary, military, naval, or 
political. What is the latter to do? His reputa¬ 
tion is at stake. Is he not to be allowed to repair 
[362] 


UNOFFICIAL PUBLICATION 

the omission or to correct the misquotation? Take 
the case of ministers who played an important part 
in the conduct of the war or the peace, and whose 
actions have been subjected to malignant and per¬ 
sistent misrepresentation. In attacking these min¬ 
isters statements are made which, if accepted by the 
public, would irretrievably damage or even destroy 
their reputation. In formulating the attack a docu¬ 
ment is partially quoted, or the report of a council 
or cabinet meeting is misquoted. The minister 
knows that a full and fair quotation would clear his 
good name*of the imputation sought to be cast upon 
it. Is he not to be allowed, in those circumstances, 
to publish it? A mere denial would carry no 
weight. A full revelation would settle the dispute 
in his favour. The publication cannot conceivably 
affect any public interest, it would supply no in¬ 
formation which could serve any possible enemy of 
his country. Is he not to be allowed to use the only 
means available to redeem his credit from the ruin 
of accepted calumny? His critic has been allowed 
to disclose secret information without protest. Is 
he to be forbidden to do so in self-defence? He 
claims that he served his country faithfully to the 
best of his powers in time of crisis and peril. For 

[363] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


that he is defamed by men who had access to secret 
information and use it freely without criticism, cen¬ 
sure or demur. Why should his country deny him 
the same privilege for his protection? That is the 
case which the cabinet committee will have to con¬ 
sider. Whatever general rules may be laid down 
they must in all fairness take into account these 
exceptional circumstances. Those who are now 
taking a prominent part in emphasising the enor¬ 
mity of giving to the public documents which were 
acquired in the public service had not a word to 
say when portions of those documents were used 
for purposes with which they were in sympathy. 
Is it not rather late for them to protest now? 
There is such a thing as fair play even when poli¬ 
ticians are attacked. 

So far as the British are concerned the writing 
of the books of the type alluded to was started, I 
think, by Field-Marshal Lord French of Ypres, in 
his book, 1914, This work is of the nature of an 
apologia; and the writer, to assist in establishing 
his case, alludes to discussions with the cabinet and 
does not hesitate to quote textually secret mem¬ 
oranda and dispatches written by himself and oth¬ 
ers. The late Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Fisher, 
[364] 


UNOFFICIAL PUBLICATION 

gives in his book, Memories, examples of his own 
intervention at the war council meetings. In his 
autobiography, From Private to Field-Marshal, 
which appeared some time later, Field-Marshal 
Sir William Robertson, who was for over two years 
the confidential adviser of the cabinet and as such 
attended all war councils and most war cabinet 
meetings, when it suits his argument gives to the 
public his version of what passed at these highly 
secret conclaves. Though he does not quote secret 
documents textually, he describes the proceedings 
and deliberations of the supreme war council, inter- 
Allied conferences and the war cabinet, and refers 
to the opinions of individuals. In his recent 
speeches he has gone even further. A still more 
recent work, Sir Douglas Haig's Command, is the 
result of collaboration by two authors of whom one, 
at least, held an official position during the war, 
being Sir Douglas Haig’s private secretary when 
he was Commander-in-Chief of the British army in 
France. This book is even less reticent. It, also, is 
essentially an apologia and justification of an in¬ 
dividual. To establish their case, the writers not 
only summarise some of the secret proceedings of 
the supreme war council and war cabinet, but give 

[365] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


extracts of their decisions. These extracts are freely 
used as the basis of animadversion on the council 
and cabinet of that day. It is true that some of the 
quotations are stated to be taken from French 
books previously published, but others are not, 
which arouses curiosity as to the source of the 
knowledge displayed. 

In addition there have been endless articles in 
magazines and newspapers, some signed, some writ¬ 
ten anonymously, all attacking either ministers, 
generals or admirals, and most of them clearly sup¬ 
plied with secret information by men who must have 
acquired it in their official capacity. As to all these 
disclosures protest has hitherto been silent. But 
when it is indicated that replies are forthcoming 
and that these replies will reveal the real nature of 
the misquoted documents or proceedings, the wrath 
of the assailants and their sympathisers knows no 
bounds. 

What happened in reference to the consultations 
held in connection with the framing of the peace 
treaty affords an illustration of the way these reve¬ 
lations occur. The question of the publication of 
these proceedings was definitely discussed at Ver¬ 
sailles, after the signature of the peace treaty with 
[366] 


UNOFFICIAL PUBLICATION 

Germany on the 28th June, 1919, by President 
Wilson, representing the United States, M. Cle- 
menceau and M. Simon, representing France, M. 
Sonnino, representing Italy, M. Makino, represent¬ 
ing Japan, and myself. This is what occurred on 
that occasion. For the first time I quote from my 
own notes written at the time: 

“President Wilson was strongly of opinion that 
these documents ought to he treated as purely pri¬ 
vate conversation, and he objected to the communi¬ 
cation of the accounts given in the Notes of 
the private conversations, in which all present 
had spoken their minds with great freedom, as im¬ 
proper use might afterwards be made of these docu¬ 
ments. On the other hand, he did not object to the 
Notes being communicated to special individuals in 
the personal confidence of members of the Council. 
Though he looked upon certain statements, the 
conclusions and the actions as being official, and 
therefore available in the appropriate offices, the 
actual conversations were private. In the United 
States no one had the right to claim documents of 
this kind. President Wilson’s view was that each 
government should take the course traditional in its 

[367] ' 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 


own country with the clear and distinct understand¬ 
ing that no one should under any circumstances 
make the proces verbal public. M. Clemenceau did 
not think that such documents should be regarded 
as private property, whilst M. Sonnino thought 
they need not be considered as official documents. 

“For my own part I was anxious to know what 
the precedents were. I also felt bound to enter a 
caveat that if attacks should be made on the politi¬ 
cal heads I might be forced in particular cases to 
refer to these Notes, and I gave warning that I 
might have to do so unless a protest was then made. 
M. Clemenceau agreed so far, that it might be im¬ 
possible to refuse extracts from the proces verbauoc 
to prove particular facts.” 

It will be observed from this record that I was 
the first to safeguard the interest of persons who, 
I felt certain, would be attacked for their share in 
the treaty. I am the last to take advantage of the 
proviso. 

What followed? M. Clemenceau was bitterly 
attacked by his political opponents for surrendering 
French rights to the treaty. President Wilson 
was also attacked by his political opponents for 
[368] 


UNOFFICIAL PUBLICATION 

his assent to other provisions of the treaty. In self- 
defence they authorised the publication of the secret 
reports of the Paris meeting. 

M. Clemenceau entrusted his defence to M. 
Tardieu. M. Tardieu, in his book The Truth 
About the Treaty, gives most of his attention to 
the drawing up of that international instrument, 
but deals with the last portion of the war period and 
quotes from the proceedings of inter-allied confer¬ 
ences, and also of the supreme war council, giving 
the opinions of individuals. He does the same with 
the deliberations of the peace conference. In fact 
the whole book is based on international proceed¬ 
ings of a secret nature. M. Poincare, in maligning 
his rivals, has not refrained from making full use of 
information which came to his knowledge as Presi¬ 
dent of the Republic. For example, in his article, 
Souvenirs et Documents, in the Temps of the 12th 
September, 1921 , he quotes in eoctenso a letter of 
April, 1919 , from himself as President of the Re¬ 
public to the President of the Council, M. Clemen¬ 
ceau, and a letter from me in reply to the President 
of the Council. My consent was not even asked to 
the publication of my letter. This correspondence 
referred to the period proposed to be placed on the 

[ 369 ] 


WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

occupation by the Allies of the left bank of the 
Rhine. According to Signor Nitti, M. Poincare 
makes somewhat similar disclosures in his articles 
published in the Revue des Deux Mondes. All 
these disclosures were partial, truncated and, there¬ 
fore, misleading. They did not give the public a 
complete account of what occurred. The impres¬ 
sion created was, therefore, unfair to the other 
actors in that great drama. That is undoubtedly 
what impelled ex-President Wilson to hand over 
his documents to Mr. Ray Baker with a view to the 
presentation of the case from the standpoint of the 
American delegation. Hence his book, Woodrow 
Wilson and World Settlement . It is mostly based 
on the secret minutes of the supreme war council, 
numerous extracts from which are given. Signor 
Nitti, the late Italian premier, on the other hand, 
expressly states that he does not publish any docu¬ 
ment which was not intended for publication. 
Nevertheless, he prints a memorandum written by 
myself for the peace conference in March, 1919, 
under the title of Some Considerations for the 
Peace Conference before they finally Draft their 
Terms, and also M. Clemenceau’s reply, both of 
which are secret documents. But he excuses his ac- 
[370] 


UNOFFICIAL PUBLICATION 

tion in this case because extracts from this memo¬ 
randum had already been published. 

I only mention these matters, not by way of ar¬ 
raignment of these various distinguished men for 
divulging secrets they ought to have kept under lock 
and key. That is not in the least my object. I do 
so in order to point out that general rules as to the 
conditions under which confidential material can be 
used are not applicable to circumstances of the 
Great War and the peace that ensued. Disclosures 
already made largely for purposes of criticism and 
aspersion upon individuals or bodies of individuals 
have given the assailed parties a special position 
which cannot in justice be overlooked. 

London, March 17th, 1923. 


[ 371 ] 




















































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